- Okay, let's get
straight down to business. Because we don't wanna be like one of those recipe blog posts that
go through like half a year of someone's entire life
story just to like get to the actual information
that people need. So you want to sew, but perhaps it is the
apocalypse or something, and you need to know exactly
what you need to know in order to sew something,
like, fairly efficiently. If you are a regular viewer
of this channel, you will know that it is so entirely
possible to sew entire garments with just the materials
that can fit in this bag. No electricity, no machines,
just you and your tools and your own two hands
make entire garments. So let's explore. (contents clattering)
(lively music) The first thing I should probably disclaim is that everyone's sewing kit is going to be slightly more individualistic. What you keep in your sewing
bag is very much a reflection (tools clatter) of how you as a craftsperson
like to create things and like to sew. I think pretty much
for any sewing purpose, these four are essentials. First, of course, are needles. You will probably need a
needle if you would like to, you know, engage in
the practice of sewing. It does tend to really help. But I have this nice little needle case that I keep all my needles in just so that they're
all nice and contained, they're not floating around my sewing bag, they're not stabbing me. Within this needle case, I like to have a couple
of different sizes. So generally, I like to
carry a tapestry needle, which is a big, chunky,
kind of blunt needle that is not really meant to do much in regards to fine sewing,
but it's really helpful if, say, you are trying to lace a garment that has very small eyelet holes, and you need to sort of sew
yourself into that garment, as well as if you're doing thicker, sort of applique work or soutache work. Also, if you do knitting,
if you work with yarn, tapestry needles are an
absolute essential for that. The next needle that I will
always be sure I'm carrying is a very long needle. This is good for basting. Because basting is a
very quick, very fast, very long stitch, you wanna have as much space
on your needle as possible so that you can load up as
many stitches as possible and go super fast. Then I will have an assortment
of variously sized needles, various heights, various eyes. This is probably way more
needles than you actually need in your sewing kit, but
needles tend to come sized. So I believe the basting
needle is around a size 4 or 6, all the way up to 10 and 12, which get very, very, very tiny. So I have a range of different sizes, longer ones that I'll
use for thicker fabrics, and, of course, my way tiny. I haven't quite gone down to number 12s, but I am very fond of the number 10, and I use that for most of my fine historical sewing projects. These are very tiny. They do take a bit of
practice to get used to. I've been able to get most
of my threads through this, and especially if I'm working
with just basic silks, basic wools, cottons,
linens, this is all I need. I love my number 10s. The next most important
thing that you will need is, of course, thread. How do you sew without thread? I always keep an assortment
in my sewing bag, as well as, of course,
plenty of thread that I have in my sewing room for various projects. But in my sewing bag I
always have black thread and white thread, just
the absolute basics. This may vary depending on your wardrobe and what sort of sewing that you do. Because most of my clothing
is black and white, it behooves me to have
black and white thread. Cotton thread, for me,
is pretty universal. I wouldn't necessarily
recommend using cotton thread in modern machines because
it can't, you know, always withstand the
rigors of modern machinery. So, you know, take that
with a grain of salt. I also usually carry a
black silk, once again, because primarily a lot of
what I work on is black, and silk thread is really strong. So if I have a particular,
like, sewing on a button, for example, I would try and
do that in the strongest, most heavyweight silk thread that I can because I know that's
gonna be super strong. I also usually carry around a linen thread just in case I'm doing a
pre-19th-century project. Linen thread is, for those
projects, pretty much ubiquitous. Once again, this is not essential. If you are not doing historical
reconstruction projects, then you might not care
about linen thread. Linen thread is not to
be used in machines. It is pretty much a
hand-sewing-only thread, but it is pretty strong,
and I love working with it. It's very stable, it's very
sort of easy to work with. I love working with linen thread. But if you do a lot of historical sewing and you work with linen thread, you will need wax for your thread. You can use linen thread without wax, but it makes the thread much weaker, much more difficult to deal with. So I carry around a bit of beeswax for when I'm doing
projects with linen thread. That, to me, is an essential. To everyone else, it's probably
like irrelevant. (chuckles) So it just depends. These are my staple threads,
but do with that as you will. But speaking of things that
are small, and pocket-sized, and useful in a pinch, this video has been brought
to you by "June's Journey," the detective-themed hidden
objects mystery game, which have been kind
supporters of this channel, as well as my own
personal mobile amusement for six entire years now. I've personally found "June's
Journey" an excellent way to wind down at the end of
a busy or stressful day, while also putting my
detail-spotting skills to use, skills that are, of course, very useful in the realm of historical garment study. If you have yet to
investigate it for yourself, basically, you get to play through beautifully illustrated
scenes as you follow June as she journeys through
her 1920s adventures. She travels all over the
world as she solves mysteries and uncovers family secrets. Every chapter takes you somewhere new and gives you a whole new set
of gorgeous scenes to work on. Download "June's Journey" for free by clicking the link in
the description box below or by scanning the QR code on screen. "June's Journey" is available
on mobile through iOS and Android devices, as well as on desktop
through Facebook games. See you in the 1920s,
somewhere in the world. (mysterious music) Next, of course, I always carry around a small pair of scissors. These are embroidery scissors. They're great for snipping
threads, obviously, you know, as you will need to do. But in a pinch, if we're
talking apocalypse, when you first buy these, these
are absolutely sharp enough to cut through fabric, and in a pinch, you can absolutely cut
out a garment with this. If the zombies are chasing you and you need to cut out a, I don't know, special anti-zombie robe
or whatever, (chuckles) these will absolutely
get you through that. This pair came with a
little leather sheath on it, which I thought would get annoying, but I actually find it very useful to have for my sewing bag. This bag, thankfully, is very
strong and is very durable, and it's lasted me over a decade now. But you know, if you
have a cloth sewing bag, and you've got a sharp pair
of scissors in your bag, then that might become
slightly problematic. You might wanna have a
little sheath for it. I mean, if you don't have one,
you can very easily make one in the very same way
that you make a thimble. I am a very, very stalwart
proponent of wearing a thimble. I know this is very contentious. Some people are vehemently
against wearing thimbles. I personally do not comprehend this logic. Even the seemingly least painful
of needles in the beginning will have worn a dent in your
finger by the end of the day, and you don't want that. There are a lot of
misconceptions around thimbles. A lot of people are like, "I've tried it, it doesn't work for me. It's too clumsy. I don't, I can't quite like
manage my sewing with thimbles." And to that I say, find the
thimble that works for you. There are different sizes, there are different types of thimble. We probably associate the
thimble, the image of the thimble, with this, this metal thing. You know, it slides onto your finger, and you just use it as you will. I personally don't like these
as much as a leather thimble, but if this works for you, I
know people who love these, who work with these all the time, and, you know, it gets the
job done, and it's great. If you're working with a metal thimble, then it has to be sized correctly. If it's too loose, then it's
gonna slide all over the place and it's not gonna work,
it's not gonna function. It's gonna be uncomfortable,
it's gonna be annoying, and you're gonna hate using it. The way that you can
test if a thimble fits is if you turn your finger
upside-down, and if it stays, that's how you know
you've got a good thimble. If you have a metal
one and it almost fits, and you'll see this with a lot of vintage and antique thimbles, how
it's slightly misshapen, you can actually squish
them a bit, like that, with a pair of pliers or, I don't know, sit on it or something, and that way it just sort
of lessens the rotundness and flattens it a bit to
more easily fit your finger. Personally, I love my leather thimbles. They're super easy to make. If you have the smallest,
like, off-cut scrap of leather, like, don't buy a piece
of leather for this, like, find like a two-inch
square of leather, and that's all you need. Great recycling. These were very kindly sent
to me by a viewer of mine who runs an Etsy shop that
sells leather thimbles. So I will link that down
below if you wanna get, I highly recommend getting one of hers. She gave these to me a few years ago, about three years ago now. I cherish them. They have lasted me through
many a sewing project. A good leather will last you a while. If you have long fingernails, I find these are much more accommodating. Especially if you're making your own, you can sort of take that into account in the length of your thimble. The other alternative is,
if you prefer hard thimbles, to get a tailor's thimble,
which doesn't have a top to it. The dressmaker's thimble has a top to it because, I don't know,
apparently the dressmaker's way is to push it through and use the top of the thimble
to push the needle through, whereas the tailors use the
side of the finger historically. But you know, get the
thimble that works for you, that works for your
particular habits of sewing, and hopefully you will
find one that works. The last thing that I think
is pretty essential are pins. In a pinch, I have actually
used my spare needles as pins. So like, if you forget your
pins or you don't have pins, like, that's actually kind of okay. But having separate
pins are fairly useful. Theoretically, you might want
to find a nice little case to put your pins in. I have just got in the habit of sticking them into the
lining of my sewing kit, which I don't recommend. You shouldn't do that. It makes
the zipper really annoying. Don't be like me. Like, get
yourself a proper pin case. But in a pinch, you can, of course, pin them into the lining
of your sewing bag. So those are things that I
would consider essentials. Now we'll get to some things
that are nice to have. A tape measure for measuring things. I don't have this on the essentials because, historically, before
tape measures were a thing, they would just use strips of paper to take measurements of people, and just mark on the strip of paper what the circumferences
and the lengths are. There's like no math to it. So having a tape measure with
numbers on it is very helpful. If you have access to
like straight-edge rulers, I would recommend using those instead just because these sorts
of flexible tape measures, whether they are plastic,
or fiberglass, or cloth, or whatever, they can tend to
stretch or warp out of shape. As you can see, I've had
this for about 15, 20 years. This is like the only tape
measure I've ever had. And as you can see, she's
seen some better days. She's a bit warped. I wouldn't use this for the
most precise of measurements. And so, you know, this might not necessarily
be exactly an inch. You also have to be wary
of the little plastic or metal aglet on the end because they tend not
to start at exact zero. So the first inch is probably not an inch. You might wanna take it to another part of the tape measure and just find out. So if you're using this for measurements, start at the two inch, and
then subtract one at the end just to get the actual
most correct measurement that you can. Next on the nice to have is a seam ripper. I don't actually use this. I have never used this ever in my life. I know a lot of people really
like to have seam rippers because, you know, sometimes you mess up and you need to rip out a seam. Not to say that I don't mess up and I've never ripped out
a seam ever in my life, but I just find it more
efficient to use a tiny pair of scissors where you can just sort of cut through all those threads. I don't find it, you know, necessary to have a whole separate tool for that. And sometimes I find
these a bit precarious because sometimes you
can, as you're going, accidentally pierce the fabric with this sharp bit on the end and, you know, kind of make
things worse for yourself. The only reason I have this is because it's also attached to an awl. So theoretically, you could
have two separate tools in your sewing bag. These just happen to be combined into one. But having an awl I find is really useful for puncturing holes. If, for example, you're working with a really strong, tough fabric that's hard to get your needle through, you can pre-punch holes like leather if you're trying to do hand-done eyelets. So having just a sharp awl is very- (spools clatter) That didn't work out as
well as I thought it would. So having a nice sharp awl in
your toolkit is very useful. I also like to have a pair
of pliers in my sewing kit because sometimes, once
again, you get a fabric that is particularly
difficult to sew through, and sometimes you really do need to just pull your needle
out after every stitch. It sucks working on
those sorts of projects, but, you know, it's certainly
much better to use a pair of pliers than to have to
do that with your fingers. And in that sort of similar vein, I do carry a pair of
tweezers in my sewing kit. It's not like absolutely essential, but, you know, sometimes you end up with those little tiny
bits of thread at the end, when you've sort of played chicken with your seam, as I do quite a lot. And, you know, tying off that knot can be a little bit finicky with a very short bit of thread. But I reach for these quite a bit. But you know, once again,
it's not essential. Marking tools are very helpful to have. So usually, I'll have a short pencil, one that's been sharpened quite a bit, that will fit in my sewing kit, as well as a little
square of tailor's chalk. This is very helpful if
you're working on dark fabrics that don't quite show up graphite. So pencil is great for lighter fabrics, tailor's chalk is great
for darker fabrics. Once again, very helpful to have. And finally, I just like
to keep a motley handful of safety pins just in the bottom. These always come in useful, especially if you're at an event. If you're going somewhere where wardrobe malfunctions
might potentially be an issue, I like to always have a
safety pin on me somewhere. So it's really great to have a variety of sizes just hanging out in
the bottom of my sewing bag. So those are the essentials
and nice-to-haves that you can carry with
you in your sewing bag. It is, of course, nice to have
a little bag that is durable and good to carry with you
to contain all of this stuff. It doesn't have to be big. You know, if you have a bag
that's just lying around, you can, you know, put it to good use by turning it into a sewing kit. This bag was very kindly given to me by one of my colleagues. It's made of leather. I carry it with me absolutely everywhere. It's super durable. So, you know, I've had
this for over a decade, and it's lasted me this long. (bright music)
(bag ruffles) So say you have survived
the zombie apocalypse, you've made it home, you
have your own sewing space. What tools are helpful to
populate your sewing space to facilitate your sewing journey? I would say all of the essentials in the sewing bag still apply to this, but I would add to that, of course. (sewing kit scrapes) My first and foremost would be a pair of good tailor's shears. It makes your cutting job so much easier, so much cleaner, makes
the edges of your fabric, of course, much easier to work with because, theoretically,
they'll be nice and clean. Make sure these are kept
sharp, they are kept oiled, so that you don't get squeaking and you don't get jagged edges. These are very, very helpful to have. This being said, you will absolutely not be
cutting out your pattern paper with your very nice tailor's shears, because paper is very rough
and it dulls the blades. If you have ever seen those memes or had a sewing person yell at you for using their fabric shears, that's why, it's because it's very important to keep those blades super
sharp for as long as possible. So you really wanna use these for fabric and for fabric only. So having a separate pair
of scissors for paper or plastic packaging, like whatever, having just another pair
of scissors for boning, if you're cutting the edges
of boning, is very useful. I know we talked about pins earlier, but I have this tomato pin
cushion, which is very common. You'll see them all over the
place in sewing supply shops and all through history, really. I've attached a little elastic band to it, which, by the way, is
about 20 years old now. So it is very stretched out and it doesn't quite
function as it used to. So I will have to replace this, and I have not had the heart to do it. But attaching a little
band to it allows you to wear it on your wrists. So if you're draping, if you're,
you know, fitting a garment and you need pins in a pinch, then having this attached to your wrist. I know a lot of people have variously constructed
contraptions of this. It's nice to have a little
cushion for your needles. You always want to try and
keep track of your needles as best as you possibly can. So having a dedicated little cushion that, oh, I have a needle, stick it right there. Just put it in its place
so that it doesn't end up on your clothes, on the
floor, under your pillow, in your pockets of your night dress. This all has happened to me. This adorable little needle
holder thing was made by my assistant, Heathcliff, who you've probably seen on the channel, just out of some cabbage, leftover scraps of cabbage
from the Lady Sherlock project. So once again, if you need
a good cabbage project, making them into a clever
little needle cushion is a fantastic project. The next thing that I would
get is a 18-inch clear plastic quilting ruler. But these two inch by
18-inch clear plastic rulers, I swear by these. I do all of my drafting
with this sort of ruler. I find these especially useful for working with enlarging Janet Arnold patterns where you need that grid. I don't usually enjoy
working with plastics, but having a nice flexible
ruler is actually really great. So, you know, these are great. I also have a curve. This is great for drafting curved edges. But I have recently acquired
this more elaborate curve. Also a very useful tool because it has different degrees of curve. You can get very fine curves,
you can get wider curves, you can also get this sort
of very wide hip curve. There's also some little tiny circles if you need to mark eyelets,
or buttons, or something. The last thing that's
kind of nice to have, this is a flexi curve. This we use a lot in drafting 'cause you can really
bend this to your will and see exactly what that curve is, and then transfer it to
your paper, and draft that. Having a flexi curve can be great if you don't have a French curve, or you have maybe this French curve that's got too tight of a curve, and you need a wider sort of hip curve. It can be a little bit less precise because you have to bend it yourself, and, you know, some places may not be, you know, bent to the
same degree as others. This is always going to be more precise. But to have the flexibility of the flexi curve can be very useful. I've used this in historical
drafting quite a bit. And, of course, you know,
having an iron is essential to having really nice, clean,
professional-looking garments. Of course, we have a whole
separate video on ironing and the tools that you may
want to have for ironing, but having good iron is,
I would say, an essential. And that, I would say, is a
discussion on sewing tools. (Bernadette chuckles) Everything from essentials,
to nice-to-haves, to things that you can have on the go, to things that you might
want in your sewing room, I hope this has been helpful to you. And, of course, thank
you to "June's Journey" for sponsoring this video. If you would like to check them out, please go visit the link
in the description below. One thing, as I was
preparing for this video that I really noticed, is
that a lot of the things that I have in my sewing kit
are things that have been given to me over the years,
that are really wonderful, great quality items that
I've carried with me for, you know, the years
that I've been doing this. This sewing bag, for example,
that is my absolute lifeline, it was given to me by a colleague
as an opening-night gift. These amazing little containers and all seam ripper tools are, I think they're hand-carved by
one of my reenactor friends. This pair of scissors
was a graduation gift from my university costume shop. They're really just thoughtful, clever things that I've kept with me for, you know, my entire
career, basically. So if you are looking
for good gifts to give to your sewing friends,
sewing people in your lives, getting them something that's
really nice, really durable, something that will last them forever, a very good pair of tailor's
shears will last them their entire career, and
they will have you with them for the rest of their working lives. Like, it can be so magical. And it's also really great
because it's like my sewing kit is full of people who have just
believed in my sewing career over the years, and, you know, I just get to keep them
with me at all times. (zipper zips)
(bright gentle music) (air puffs)
