School Supplies for your Sewing Room!

I love back-to-school sales! I don’t just grab crayons and Elmers glue for my kids, though. I have a list of things that I stock up on this time of the year for my sewing studio, too! Do you do that? It’s the perfect time to purchase things that you can use all year at great discounts. Here are a few of my must-buys: Crayola Washable Markers are my favorite for pattern tracing and markings. I love that I get a nice sharp line with these markers, but if I make a mistake, the lines will come right out in the wash.Tape, tape, and more tape! PDF patterns use plenty of tape, and no one wants to waste pretty washi tape putting together patterns, right? I go through tons of packaging tape for shipping, too. If I can find it on sale, I stock up on it, as well.Speaking of PDF patterns … paper! Actually, I use a lot of printer paper on patterns and other printing needs. I tend to buy it whenever I find a good deal on it.Pencils and erasers for sketching, making notes and keeping small children away from my …… Frixion pens! I love the black and the blue in size .7mm for tracing quilting designs right onto the fabric, or marking positions for button holes, or making little notations so that I don’t accidentally flip a pattern piece the wrong way. Really, I use them for any markings that need to be removed without washing. Just mark, sew and then iron to make the line disappear. (I don’t use the red, though. It tends to leave a white line after pressing. The blue and black can do that on really dark fabrics, too. I opt for a white chalk pen for those.)Glue sticks are great for keeping things like appliques and fabric layers from slipping and sliding. Who could live without a stash of paper clips and binder clips? Once my PDF patterns are taped and cut, I fold them, and paper clip all the pieces of each size together, then I store all the sizes of one pattern in a large manila envelope. (Oh, those would be a good purchase, too, if you need them.) And, binder clips are a great for larger stacks of papers, of course, but they also work beautifully to keep your quilt bindings in place while you handstitch the backs down and to hold your pieces together when you’re working with waterproof fabrics that don’t like pins. Graph paper! I love these notebooks filled with graph paper for all sorts of planning. They’re the perfect place to sketch your quilt designs, but they also work for things like cross-stitch, or for planning how you’ll rearrange your studio.Finally, pencil boxes are great for storing tiny notions and small pre-cut pieces like these that I have cut out for my in-progress Tic-Tac-Toe quilt.

Whew! That’s quite a list, and I’m sure there are things that I’m forgetting. I would love to know what school-turned-sewing supplies you stock up on during the back-to-school sales!