Slice Through Sewing with These Beginner-Friendly Scissors #Fiskars

This is a photograph of a very tiny doll's bodice. It is being held by a human hand that is three times the size of the miniature doll's shirt bodice/dress bodice. Tiny stitches appear in red along the neckline of the pale blue floral fabric. There are small Fiskars "Snippers" scissors alongside the bodice, to indicate the scale of this very small garment. This is part of a blog post article that asks the question, "Can Palitoy Pippa dolls and Topper Dawn dolls swap clothes with a Remco I Dream of Jeannie doll?" This blog post asks this question because Chelly Wood (the writer, YouTuber, and doll clothing designer) has created some sewing patterns that will fit her I dream of Jeannie 6 inch fashion doll, and she wants to know if her free doll clothes patterns will also fit Pippa and Dawn dolls. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

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If you follow my YouTube channel, you’ve probably noticed that I love my little Fiskars Stitchers mini scissors, and yes, if you’re new to sewing, you can buy those too.

However the #6 MUST-have item in my list of things to put in a beginner’s sewing kit, is a pair of actual sewing scissors. You can find sewing scissors sold in a set with mini snips from time to time, and that would be a purchase you wouldn’t regret, should you decide you really enjoy sewing as a hobby.

On top of heavy blue cotton denim fabric lie a pair of sewing scissors, the handles of which are bent for cutting fabric along a cutting table. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

If you’re not sure why you can’t use your regular old household scissors, you’ll learn quickly that they don’t work well with fabric. Also, sewing scissors have a unique shape to them. Take a look at the photo above. Do you see how the handle of the scissors appears to be bent?

There’s a reason for that.

The image shows the Chelly Wood doll (a spin master Liv doll that has been repainted to look like the real doll clothing designer, Chelly Wood) holding up a photo of a woman at her sewing machine. The woman has purple fabric laid out flat on a sewing table, and she is arching one of her arms to cut the fabric while leaving the fabric flat on the sewing table. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

To correctly cut your fabric when making a human-sized garment, you need a pair of scissors that will glide along the cutting surface (maybe your kitchen table is what you’ll use) while you cut long swaths of fabric. Sewing scissors have a bent handle to help you make a clean cut, for big projects.

Sewing scissors are extremely sharp, as well, so they can cut smoothly through tricky fabrics like satin, denim, or corduroy. Never use sewing scissors for paper-cutting or craft cutting; they will lose this razor-sharp edge quickly if you misuse them.

On a black background, a pair of pinking shears (scissors) lie open, so we can easily see the zig-zag ridges that make up the blades of these sewing scissors. A red check gingham strip of fabric has been cut with the pinking shears, and the cut edge has a perfect zigzag edge where it has been cut. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Later you may want to add some pinking shears to your collection (see image above). These scissors will cut a natural zigzag along the edge of your fabric, to help keep it from fraying.

And once again, there are craft scissors that make a zigzag edge too — but you can’t use craft scissors with fabric. They are not interchangeable.

This photo shows a blue cutting mat. On top of it, we see a shirt pattern laying flat, with sleeves pointing northwest and southeast. The shirt's front points southwest. The shirt's back has been cut down the middle and a neck has been cut to form a sort of t-shape where the blue of the cutting mat shows through the cut portions of the shirt. A pair of scissors with a pink and white handle sit on the cutting mat beside the shirt. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The brand I recommend is Fiskars. Their 7″ Beginner Sewing Scissors are a great first pair of scissors for anyone who’s learning to sew for the first time, regardless of his/her age.

They also offer “Fashion Scissors,” which have colorful handles decorated in various patterns as well. Either the Beginner Sewing Scissors or the Fashion Scissors would be a good choice when you’re putting together a sewing kit for the beginners out there.

And of course Fiskars offers left-handed scissors as well. My Aunt Harriet is a left-handed sewist, and I know how important it is for those lefties out there, to get a good grip on their scissors!

In this image, a pair of scissors are cutting around a doll's T-shirt pattern (McCall's crafts 5462) which has been pinned to the fabric along the fold. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

If you enjoyed this blog post, and you’d like to see my videos, you might want to navigate over to my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1 to look through my playlists.

If you would like to make a donation to this free doll clothes pattern website, please click here. There’s also a “Donate” button in the main menu.

For anyone who would like to expand their dolls’ wardrobes, you should really check out my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course and my “Design Your Own Doll Pants Patterns from Scratch” classes on the Creative Spark online learning platform. Here’s my bio page on their website, where you can learn more.

For any class on Creative Spark, you don’t have to follow a schedule. Just sign up when you’re ready.

It’s a one-time fee for the course, and there’s no specific time limit to finish your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. So go check out my paid courses on Creative Spark, using this link.

As always, feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials.

To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include Amazon, JoAnn Fabric, Etsy, and the eBay Partner Network. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how my website uses affiliate marketing, please visit the website’s Privacy Policy page.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.