Forum Thread: What notion can't you live without?

I'd be hard-pressed to leave behind my Gingher scissors. They were a gift from my mom when she hand-me-downed her first sewing machine to me. They also cut like nothing I've ever used before.

A runner-up is probably the set of Wonder Weights my aunt gave me. They keep me from leaving pins all over the floor when I'm cutting out patterns. The hubby is definitely a fan.

Wonder Weights? I've never heard of those, what are they? Anything that cuts down on how many pins I have to use, I'm all for! I usually sew barefoot, and have stepped on more than one pin.

My husband describes them as "rubber chair tips full of sand and sealed off flat on the bottom." You lay out your fabric and the pattern on top, like usual, but instead of poking holes in your pattern and possibly missing a few pins in the floor later, you put the heavy little knobs on top. They hold the pattern in place pretty well, and they don't get stuck in your feet.

I know what you mean about the barefoot thing. I never wear shoes if I can help it. I even got married barefoot!

Those sound pretty awesome, I'll have to see if I can find some on my next Joann's run. It sounds like you'd still need to use pins when sewing, though, since I can't imagine those working to hold the fabric together.

What I also need to remember to do is buy a magnet wand and use that to gather up all my lost pins.

It doesn't completely eliminate the need for pins, but it lessens it considerably. Instead of pinning the pattern to the fabric, cutting it out, unpinning, repinning, and then sewing... Well... You get the point.

I've never seen them at Joann's... A quick Google search pops up Dritz Pattern Weights, though. They even come in pink, purple, and green!