Preparing fabric

Pulling a thread gives a straight line perpendicular to the selvedge. Preparing the fabric by getting these lines sitting together correctly is essential for successful cutting.

If you ever want to make a pattern cutter or a hairdresser nervous just hold out your hand as if you were about to pick up their scissors! It’ll be the sort of trouble you get into placing yourself between a mother and offspring. Why? Well, over time your shears fine tune themselves to the way you cut and a well-used pair of shears is as much a part of your hand as your fingers. Someone else using them can upset this fine tuning particularly if they use them for something other than fabric! Fabric shears for fabric, paper scissors for paper, thread scissors for threads. It’s as simple as that!

Preparing to cut tweed fabric.