30 Tools You Will Love

Here are 30 of my favorite sewing and pattern making tools and where you can get them. I’m not affiliated with or endorsed by any of these companies, I’m just offering my opinion of these products because they’re what I use every day while I work, and I’m very picky about what tools I use! You can watch the video below, or continue down and read all about it!

Before I start, you’re going to be hearing a lot about this company Wawak. I’m not endorsed by them in any way, I just really like their selection, they have great prices, and fast shipping. I buy all of my thread and zippers from Wawak, and most of my tools and notions there too. Seriously check them out and save yourself some money. The markup at sewing stores like JoAnns is absurd.

Alright, let’s start with pattern making tools. These aren’t all of my tools, these are just my favorites that I want to share with you.

1. I have this needle point tracing wheel. It’s great to transfer markings on pattern paper.

2. This is a drill punch, I got mine from Ace sewing. It comes with an assortment of different sized tips, and it’s really great for punching holes in patterns to mark darts, pocket placements, anything like that. Otherwise you would use an awl, but that just tears a hole in the pattern paper and it can close back up as you’re marking it. So the drill punch is a great solution to that.

3. This is a MC Meith brand notcher (size 1/16″) that’s a little pricey, it’s about $80, but it’s SO worth it. You can get cheaper ones but they’re just garbage. The MC Meith notches perfectly every time, it’s super reliable, and this one is 12 years old and going strong, so, yeah, definitely worth the money.

4. I pretty much avoid scissors as much as possible (bone spur on my thumb from…wait for it…using scissors too much) so I use whatever is the generic term for an Xacto knife to cut out all of my patterns. This one is Fiskars and it has a comfort grip so it’s really nice to use.

5. Pattern weights are nice but they get expensive and aren’t completely necessary. You can DIY all sorts of effective pattern weights. I used to use old liquor bottles filled with water! I would even paint them to make them more fun. I have seen other people use scraps of heavy tile with the edges sanded down. I have even used cans of cat food in a pinch!

And here are a few of my favorite rulers.

6. This Styling Design Ruler is surprisingly delicate, I break mine probably about once every year or two. But it has a really nice curve – I like this curve better than the metal hip curve ruler, and I like being able to see through it.

7. I wasn’t sure about this Olfa ruler when I got it, but it has been extremely useful! It’s 6” by 24”, and I mostly use it for cutting binding. It already has a 45 degree angle marked on it for lining up true bias cuts.

8. This dotted pattern paper is expensive upfront but it lasts forever. It’s easy to see through, easy to fold for doing pleats, tapes together with scotch tape, easy to see pencil markings on, so I’m pretty into this paper right now. The grid is really helpful, but it’s not 100% accurate or to scale, so don’t rely on the numbers for true measurements, because they are NOT that.

9. If you need a more substantial paper, like if you’re going to be cutting the same pattern out quite a bit, I like this builder’s paper. It’s very cheap, but you’ll want to use masking tape instead of scotch tape on it, and pencil markings are harder to see. It’s only 35” wide so it’s not ideal for really large pattern pieces. But you can get it at Home Depot, so that’s great if you’re desperate to have pattern paper right now and you don’t live near any kind of a craft store like me, I’m kinda out in the middle of nowhere in the desert.

If that’s still too expensive you can always use newspaper. That’s how I started!

10. This is a piece of muslin, which is 100% cotton, usually unbleached so it has this natural color to it. It’s what you use to drape patterns and make fit samples. The exception to that would be if I’m going to be working with a knit, then I’ll drape and mock up either in the knit, or a cheaper knit with similar stretch.

There are different weights of muslin. I usually go for a medium weight, but generally it’s best to work in whatever is the most similar to what your final fabric is. Like if you want to make a chiffon blouse, a medium weight muslin isn’t going be an accurate representation.

I just ordered muslin from Fabric Wholesale Direct and it was around $2.50 per yard for a 60”, and after shipping around $3.50. They did raise their prices after that, so you might need to check around. JoAnns does have a good selection and their prices are good IF you wait for a 50-60% off coupon.

11. Oh, and one more thing right in front of me! My cutting mat! I love this mat, it’s the whole size of my table, which is 5.5’ by about 7’, so it’s great if you want a larger cutting surface than what sewing stores are offering, and it’s cheaper too. The company selling these is DTG Mart.

Okay, moving on, these are my favorite pressing tools.

12. This is a clapper, which you’ll see me use quite a bit of in my tutorials. It’s great for pressing crisp seams. I use it pretty much every time I press a seam or fold – it really makes a big difference. The clapper that Wawak carries has a rounded edge. Mine has a sharp edge which will leave an indentation in the fabric if I press too hard, so Wawak has a really nice version.

13. This tailer’s point presser is extremely handy if you’re pressing any sleeve cuffs, collars, mitered corners, tie point, and anything else that’s small and hard to get to. It also has a clapper on the bottom, so you could get just this tailer’s point and not even need a separate clapper. These are pretty tricky to find though. The one that Wawak carries is NOT good. For some reason the manufacturer made the point stick out really far from the base, which seems like a good idea to give you more access to the point, but as soon as you press on the tip it just topples over, so it’s pretty much useless. This one is balanced well. You can really press on that tip and it’s not going to fall over. So I highly recommend this one, it is a Yomacraft and I got it on Amazon.

14. This is just a good old fashioned ham for pressing curved seams. Darts, princess lines, sleeve caps, anything on a curve, this is what you need!

15. And a sleeve board! So you can insert this into your sleeve or pant leg (anything, really) and press the seams without pressing any unwanted folds. This one from Wawak is really nice – see how far back the brace is, so you can really use the whole board.

This is a vintage sleeve board that I got at a thrift store a long time ago. It’s handy because it’s collapsible but you can see I can only use about half of the board before the garment hits the hinges.

16. One ruler I didn’t mention earlier is this little 1×12”. It’s probably my most used ruler, and they’re surprisingly very hard to find (lucky for you I’ve already done that!). I’ve gotten them in the past from a different brand and it wasn’t calibrated so by the time you got to 12” it was actually about a half inch short. So it’s a good idea maybe to just check all of your rulers and measuring tools as you get them!!!

17 & 18. For all of my cutting I use a rotary cutter. I like the Fiskars brand, I think it’s more comfortable to hold and use than the Olfa cutters. BUT…they’re more dangerous to use because the blade comes off just by unscrewing a screw on the back. And it WILL unscrew as you use it. And I’ve HAD it unscrew as I used it and the blade popped off and cut my thumb open SO just be careful if you’re going to use the Fiskars. I check the screw now after every cut. Olfa is safer to use because you have to physically pop a thing out to take the blade off, but I just don’t care for the feel of them as much. I mostly use this standard 45mm blade (if you’re left-handed like me, this one doesn’t have the annoying speed-sheath button on the side so you can use it without fear), but I like the little 18mm blade for tight curves or other tight areas. You can get replacement blades for the 45mm here and the 18mm here. Just remember that the Olfa blades and Fiskars blades aren’t interchangeable.

19. These are my favorite snips! This is a Wiss Quick Snip and I cannot function without this little guy. I haven’t used a seam ripper since I started using these in 2008.

20. I keep little scissors by my machine to snip away corners or curved seam allowances, or to grade seams – there’s lots of little trimming you have to do while you’re sewing so I keep a sharp little scissor nearby. I happened to get these Gingers, well actually I have 3 of these so I guess I like them. When you get them they’re SO sharp but they get dull really quickly as you use them, and if you drop them forget it, they are goners. So…

21. I got these diamond sharpeners and now I can touch up my scissors whenever they get dull or nicked from being dropped or accidentally cutting into a pin…yeah it happens.

22. These are water soluble pencils. They’re great for marking polyvinyl-chloride or polyurethane coated fabrics (fake leather, vinyl) or even real leather. Dry it doesn’t really leave a mark, but if you wet the tip (I just dab it on my tongue) it will mark those difficult fabrics very easily.

23 & 24. And then we have these Frixion pens and markers. I love these so much! They come in an assortment of colors and they erase with heat, so you can mark whatever and then remove the marks with your iron. You can also use just steam from the iron if the fabric is heat sensitive. I use them now when I’m draping and then I can re-use the muslin, or if I’m drawing style lines and I don’t like them I can just run the iron over it and start over, even on paper. **One word of caution with these though – on some fabrics they will leave a mark after it’s erased so always be sure to check them. Some office supply stores like Staples carry the pens, but I have to go to Amazon for the markers.

25. Thimbles. It took me a long time before I started using a thimble because I didn’t know they came in different sizes. I only had some old hand-me-downs that were too big and would fall off, and I thought, what the hell is the point of that? So if you get the right size it should stay on your finger while you’re working. And you’ll want the kind with an open top so you still have a bit of sensitivity in your finger. This will help protect your finger while hand sewing, and it makes it easier to hand-sew through tough fabrics.

26. This is a choco liner, and I want to like these, I really do. They leave a nice fine line, but they do leave a lot of powder behind, so they’re messy and they’re too easy to wipe off. They’re okay if you’re going to mark and sew immediately, but if you’re going to mark and then do some other work on the garment, this is probably going to wear away. Even though I rarely use these, I’m including it in my favorites because sometimes it’s exactly what I need. I use it the most to mark dark colored bias strips because otherwise I would have to stop and sharpen my chalk too often.

27. Which brings me to this Tailor’s chalk, which is what I use the most for marking. I use the clay chalk. It’s also available in a wax chalk which some people like because it irons away, but sometimes it leaves a stain behind, so I usually steer clear of the wax chalk and only use the clay. The tailor’s chalk does need to be sharpened a lot so I use a straight razor to shave the sides back into a point.

28. This needle has a blunt tip and large eye – you can get these in a pack of upholstery repair needles. I use it to thread my serger tails back through the serged edge to finish the seams.

29. And then my beautifully organized pin cushion. This isn’t because I’m neurotic, it’s because each of these pins is made of a different gauge of wire and a different length, so they’re used for different fabrics. The yellow ones I don’t use very often because I find the ball actually hurts my fingers after a while, and it’s a thicker gauge so it can feel a little clumsy going through fabrics. They’re good for heavy duty fabrics that would otherwise put too much stress on the smaller gauge pins and bend them. The white pins are the ones I use the most often. They’re glass head pins (so they won’t melt under an iron), and the gauge is heavy enough for most fabrics I use. It has a nice sharp point so it gets through most fabrics easily. The blue-head pins are ultra fine glass head pins and they’re good for satin, chiffon, any very delicate fabric that even the white pins might snag. I even use them on fake leather because they’re so small they don’t usually leave a hole behind. But, they’re SO sharp, it feels like they go straight to the bone if you ever prick yourself with it, so just be really careful when you’re using those, they really hurt! And then there’s this other glass head pin that’s really long. I mostly use these for thick fabrics like fur or anything with batting that you would need that length for.

30. The last tool that I really like is these little binding makers. I tied an example of what they make on each one so I have a size reference, but the size does vary based on the fabric you’re using. I like that I can make a clean binding out of practically any fabric I want, and they’re fairly easy to use. You just cut a strip of fabric on the bias, insert the edge into the binding maker using an awl to push it along if you need to. Then slowly pull the binding maker along and press close to the edge. Then fold it not completely in half, you want it ever so slightly staggered, and press it again. You can put your own binding on anything, and it’s WAY cheaper than buying ugly pre-made binding!

I have been sewing for 20 years, and it has taken all of that time to accumulate all of the tools I have, so don’t feel like you have to go out and buy everything all at once. A lot of my first tools were picked up at local thrift stores as I was starting out.

Do you have any tool that you just can’t work without, or that you’re particularly excited about? Share in the comments!