Clover is a well known company that have been making sewing tools for many years. I recently received the brilliant Hold It Precision Stiletto. Really handy for keeping your piecing in line and perfect. The thing that makes this really helpful, is that it has a plastic curved pointer at one end which helps keep fabric moving through the needle whilst keeping fingers out of the way. I’m sure some of you will have seen or heard of people who have sewn through their fingers… Ekk. Here’s a little cautionary tale for you.
My husband and I have a touring caravan and love to travel around the UK with our best friends Janet and John. (I’ve used fake names to protect their identity!) Janet has taken up sewing and, on a rainy afternoon in West Wales, was working on a beautiful creation for another of her friends. (Attic Window using oriental fabrics. So pretty but I’m afraid I don’t have a picture..)
John comes out of their motorhome and shouts over, ‘Get Helen! Where’s Helen?’ My husband and I just about hear him from inside of our van one the wind and rain. I cast my hand sewing to one side, put on my shoes (moaning all the while that it’s just started raining again.) I get over there to, you guessed it, my friend sat with one hand under her machine and the other over her own mouth in shock. Oh no! She had sewn the needle through her finger. We worked out that she thought she’d stopped the machine but had rested her foot not on the floor but on the pedal.
It wasn’t so bad. First things first, don’t panic. Turn off and unplug the machine. I then managed to get the needle unscrewed from the machine which released enough room to get the quilt out from underneath. From this point, Janet was able to remove the needle from her finger. Her only worry was that she got blood on the quilt… It was fine, not a drop.
This little tale highlights the importance of not letting your fingers get anywhere near your needle, hence the reason I really love this Clover tool.
The other end of the pointer has another clever ideal – a silicon pointer which you can use with your iron. This is really useful when positioning small appliqué pieces. Holding them in place whilst pressing into position. We all know the tip of our fingers are at risk when doing this but the silicon holds the pieces, or fabrics, in place perfectly.
Being married to a Health and Safety manager, he approves of any tool which is designed to stop stab and burn injuries and I can certainly recommend.
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