Passionate experienced sewer and author of Sewing Tool Digest

Hi.  My name is Terri, and I am your host, tester, writer, and photographer for Sewing Tool Digest.  I am also the videographer, but I will be enlisting family help for some of that.

Photo of Terri

I have been a lifelong sewing enthusiast, and I hope you are also.  If you are new to sewing, I hope this website will help your journey to becoming a sewing fan.  Sewing can bring so much into your everyday life: beauty, creativity, personal expression, accomplishment, fun, and joy!  It is also a useful life skill that everyone should have to at least a small degree.

My Sewing Journey

My sewing journey started as a grade school child when I begged my mom to teach me to use her old Singer machine.  I started with doll clothes. Every trip to Sears to pick out some new fabric and a new pattern was cherished.  I still have those early doll clothes and patterns.  It is amazing when I examine them that I had started altering patterns even as an eight-year-old.

Of course, never having any daughters myself, I wasn’t deterred from continuing to buy doll clothes patterns.  Even if I never sew most of them, I still love looking at them.  Fortunately, my sons have been giving me quite a few granddaughters, so I get to sew doll clothes again.

Over the following decades, my sewing interests varied and matched up with where I was in life. You will probably find yourself in some of the same life cycles.  Where are you now? 

My personal sewing pleasures have included sewing clothes for me, Halloween costumes for my 3 boys, many gifts for people I care about, creative mending of boys’ jeans and sweatpants, charitable sewing, artistic expressions, home dec, clothes for other family members, face masks for family, neighbors, and friends, doll clothes for grand-daughters, quilts, and more quilts.

Throughout it all, I loved sewing tools, books, and magazines.  As you will see, I have collected a LOT of sewing tools over the years, and the collection is still growing.

Family

All my family members are sewers.  You will see some of them from time to time in the pictures and videos. I have three sons, two gorgeous daughters-in-law, and seven wonderful grandchildren.  All the granddaughters are crafty and want to sew.  My grandson is too young still to be crafting, but I am sure he will be joining in also.

My constant companion, Ernesto, is featured in some photos.  He is a two-year-old Havanese dog who will simply not be left out.  Since he is so cute, loving, devoted, curious, and playful, I don’t really mind.  Even as I write this, he is snuggled in next to me in the chair. 

Warning – don’t try to judge the relative sizes in the pictures by comparing any knowledge you have about the breed’s size.  The breed standard is 8 to 13 pounds, and both of his parents were 12 pounds.  However, Ernesto is perfectly healthy at 18.5 pounds.  I credit his size to the extremely nutritious diet I started him on at 8 weeks old and as his vet told me “He didn’t know he was supposed to stop growing at 12 pounds”.

Hopes

My desire to share my knowledge of sewing and my interest (bordering on obsession) in sewing tools is the driving force for creating Sewing Tool Digest.  I wanted a place where sewists could get hands-on reviews of sewing tools, instead of just finding reviews prepared by non-sewers or sewers who haven’t used what they put on their ‘best of’ lists.

Hopefully, we will find some of the newest generations of wonderfully creative sewers in our community here that found sewing during the shelter-at-home months.  They are proof that anyone, at any age, and with any level of sewing experience can create gorgeous expressions of their individuality.

Ernesto my Havanese companion

Men Welcome

Finally, even though there remain many more females than males involved in sewing, I hope men continue to find sewing.  To that end, I will try to limit the pink used in my website.  But, hey, pink is still favored by a lot of sewists so I can’t take it out altogether.

I will try to find tools that might appeal more to men.  Some of the tools I own come in other less girlie colors and I will point them out when I find them.

I taught all three of my sons to sew; one even asked for his own sewing machine for his birthday when he was still in elementary school.  Personally, I think all men should know how to sew, even if they decide it won’t become an active hobby for them.

When one of my sons wanted to bring in the pajama bottoms he sewed for show and tell, I was a bit concerned he would get negative reactions from some of the other 5th-grade boys in his class.  Even his teacher was worried when she saw what he brought.  We shouldn’t have worried. She told me later that his friends thought it was cool he could do that, and the other boys remained quiet because my son was bigger than them.  The girls thought he was awesome.

If you have sons, teach them to sew.  If you are a grown man, try it out.  Borrow a machine (after they show you how to use it) from a family member or friend and start by sewing something simple and useful.  Watch some videos of men sewing.  There are some great ones out there.  See for yourself if sewing has a place in your DIY skill set.  Know you have a home here.

Enjoy Sewing Tool Digest as a friendly, positive, useful place!

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