Cicy's Projects

Week 2 of my adventure sewing a vintage wardrobe for myself as a complete beginner was a bit slow to be honest. I continued to practice on scrap material, but one huge step was cleaning out the sewing box, inspiring today’s post with the treasures I found in it.

I swear it hasn’t been organised since we bought it, so the amount of time I spent on un-tangling the threads was ridiculous. After all, I did manage to make it nice and organised, so I learnt we have a lot of valuable stuff for sewing.

Like, I absolutely fell in love with my mom’s sewing scissors, I mean look at this one. So funny! If I am not mistaken they are called thread snippers and are used to cut thread. The funny thing about a thread snip is that it pops back open when not used, as opposed to normal scissors that stay the way you leave them.

Or these zig-zag scissors that will come in handy when I’m making a dress that needs a funky ending. At first, I thought this one needed a bit of oiling up because I literally couldn’t pop it open with my two fingers. I literally needed both of my arm’s strengths, but after several forceful opens I managed to get it working just fine.

I found a seam opener too, which I hope I won’t have to use too much. It is this small tool that you use when you need to unpick stitches for whatever reason, usually that reason being you messed up. It is a very heart-breaking process I am sure, one that I am not looking forward to doing.

Next, we have marking chalk, which is used to signal where the fabric should be cut, or where you should be sewing when you make clothes. It has all sorts of uses related to signalling where to do something. My mom’s good friend gave me a great tip for when I run out of marking chalk. Dried out, used up, and thin leftover of the soap does the wonder equally good. What a great idea! Upcycle what you can’t use anymore, brilliant.

Next I found this wooden darning mushroom. Weird thingy, really. It is used to fix socks. It comes in two pieces, and my little brain didn’t put one and one together. I thought they were unrelated junk and I almost threw them out. My mom nearly got a heart attack, but she explained how it is used and I neatly put it back in the box haha

And last but not least, a mini stapler sewing machine. I mean look at the size of it! It is used to finish off the clothes’ ends and to hem the material you are using. I’ve read online that it is good for small repairs, but according to my mom, it is not so useful. From my very quick attempt to use it, I see why it would be disregarded as useless, but I need some more time with it to make up my own mind.

Other honourable mentions that I will not spend much time on are needles and pins (about a trillion of them), even more buttons, and all sorts of threads and materials. I also found some patterns my mom created that she used to make our childhood bedroom so dreamy. I grouped the materials and threads based on their colours to make them easily identifiable and accessible. I might need a bigger box for the materials soon.

Does this bring back memories of when you needed to clean out your sewing box? How do you organise your sewing materials and tools?

Organization is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it’s not all mixed up. by A.A. Milne