Favorite purse making tools

Since I have been having so much fun making those purses, I wanted to share with you my favorite purse making tools.

I’ll begin with the Cricut EasyPress 2. I’ve been looking at presses, but they were way too large, too expensive, and more than I needed. I heard about this tool on several quilters’ You Tube videos. I was especially interested in using it to adhere the interfacing to the fabric.

I like that I can set the temperature and even set a timer. This one is also big. It’s 12 x 10 inches and it’s great for just ironing pieces of fabric. It’s a bit heavy, but the handle makes it easy to use. There are smaller sizes, but this one is perfect for me!

 

This Xyron 900 I bought years ago when I was into scrapbooking. It comes in handy laminating pattern pieces. Fortunately, they still sell supplies for it, so I was able to buy more laminating material. I printed the pattern piece on cardstock, and then laminated it.

 

Next up is this sleeve ironing board. OMG! I have been needing one of these forever. It’s great for ironing the seams down when the outside and the lining pieces are sewn together. I know I’ll use it for other things too. There are a variety of these, but I chose this one because it has two sides that are different widths. Since I didn’t need to use the bottom one right now, I’ve left the plastic on it to keep it clean. The only thing I object to is the smell when I was ironing. I’m hoping that will go away with time.

 

These stainless steel flat washers help keep the pattern from moving on the fabric as I cut the curved areas. However, for pattern pieces that were just rectangles, they weren’t needed.

In addition to the EasyPress 2, this is one of those “how did I live without this” tools. In fact, I bought this over a year ago, and just this month used it. This is the Skyhawk 14 x 14 inch 360 degree rotating cutting board. This made cutting the pieces out so much easier. You never have to lift or move the fabric to cut. You can use the rotary cutter. Here I’m using another one of my favorite tools, the Havel rotary cutter. I like that the blade only comes out when you are pressing down on the fabric. After you take it off the fabric, the blade goes back in it’s safe place. I can’t count the number of times I’ve cut myself on the blade of other rotary cutters that I left it open on my table after cutting. I also love Havel scissors, and have a variety of shapes and sizes of them.

Of course, you can use your ruler with this cutting board.

The only thing I can say negative about this specific rotating cutting board is the lines. I would have liked the inch lines to be a darker yellow. They are a tad darker than the half inch lines, but for me difficult to distinguish. Otherwise, I love this cutting surface.

Lastly, Using just regular mailing labels helps me to know which pieces go where in the purse construction. Prior to doing this I was remeasuring all of my cut pieces to figure out where they went. Now I know exactly where each piece goes. This is especially important if you are making a lot of purses.

Those are my favorite purse making tools so far. I’d love to hear about your favorite tools, even if they aren’t specifically for making purses.