Tailor’s scissors

Hi everyone,
once you start sewing and have had your first experiences with fabric, you inevitably come to the topic of scissors.

So far, I’ve been cutting out fabric pieces with a sharp pair of Zwilling kitchen scissors. They cut pretty well overall, but they don’t handle curves very well. The tips are also too high and not narrow enough to make precise cuts. I’m not very happy with them, especially when cutting small pieces.

What kind of scissors do you use for cutting fabric? What should I look for when buying a pair of tailor’s scissors?

Best regards, Ina

I’d love to see photos of your scissors and what they’re particularly good for.

Thank you. 

Ina, scissors are a science all their own when it comes to sewing :-)
here's my selection of scissors: the orange ones are from Fiskars, the large scissors are my fabric-cutting scissors, the small one next to them is a seam ripper, also ideal for clipping into sewn curves because it doesn't have a long cutting path, then a good pair of pinking shears, the small cutting scissors from Zwilling, appliqué scissors—that's the one with the red handles—a large and small pair of paper scissors, BECAUSE NEVER CUT FABRIC WITH PAPER SCISSORS! You'll only get really annoyed when the fabric acts up and doesn't cut well. Small thread scissors are part of it too, because when I'm sewing I don't need large scissors to cut threads.

Best wishes, Inge

Dear Inge,

Thank you very much for showing us your scissors. That really is quite a treasure trove. You need them all, each for its own purpose.

I’ve also already looked at the orange Fiskars ones online. I think they would be perfect for cutting fabric because of their shape. You don’t have to lift the fabric while cutting.

Once I’ve decided on a pair, I’ll only use them for cutting fabric. We already have enough scissors that don’t cut properly. I’ll label my dressmaking shears separately and keep them with my sewing thread.

Best regards

I’m not as well-equipped as Inge. But I treasure and take good care of this one. 

It says Solingen on it. My mother said I needed a good one. Then I was told that I must never cut anything but fabric with it, and that I have to make sure it never falls down. If it ever starts to pinch, it would be unusable. 



By now I have an inherited pinking shears and a very old fabric scissors in my possession. Unfortunately, both of them pinch, and getting a nice cut with them is quite a chore.

Yeah, scissors are a whole other story :-) ;-)
My husband and I hadn’t been a couple for very long when I caught him holding my little fabric scissors in one hand and a thin sheet of copper in the other—oh, did I give him an earful, asking if he was out of his mind, cutting copper sheet with my fabric scissors—that’s when we had our first real blowup, and that was almost 40 years ago :-)
 The next day we were at his parents’ house, and there my sweetheart complained to his mom that I’d yelled at him over a pair of scissors. I told my mother-in-law why I’d yelled; she looked at her son, grinned at me, and said dryly, “Be glad Inge only yelled—if it were me, you’d have felt the Persilpatsche!” :-) My mother-in-law was also a seamstress and knew all about the sanctity of cutting shears.
@ Persilpatsche = that was a narrow board about 80–90 cm long, slightly wider at the front than at the back, and people used to stir the laundry in the wash tub with it and then lift it out. Young people these days probably don’t even know what that is anymore :-)

Love, Inge