"Meet the Supplies" #1: SCISSORS!

I am an artist living in a New York apartment, and I own A LOT of art supplies.  I've had to choose art supplies over a lot of other things a normal person might own, such as nice clothing or any decent number of books.  Given how important they are to me, and the percentage of the available space in our place that is filled with them, I thought my giant collection of supplies might deserve a series of posts profiling what makes them great, where I got them, and why I keep them around.  First up, one of the most important tools any artist or craftsperson could ever own, SCISSORS.  

I once saw a comedian on TV who had a bit about how to survive being married to a crafter.  I don't remember most of the jokes, but I definitely recall that his Rule #1 was "Never touch her scissors." Seems to me this was not a bad piece of advice!

Normal scissors live in a giant mug. Gimmicky fancy-edge scissors live with my collection of decorative punches - those will get their own post sometime soon!

I have a bit of what one might call a "scissors problem." I really hate to part with a pair once it's in my life:

The (nearly) whole collection.  These are the scissors that stay at home with me.

And here are the ones that help me out at work, where they have the glamorous job of being used to make costumes for Broadway shows. 

I'm not even totally sure where I got some of these scissors, I've had them for so long!

The three little silly decorative paper edgers are surprisingly useful, and I hope to feature some of the fun things a quilter can do with them in a future post, even though, very disappointingly, they are completely and totally unable to cut fabric. 

The pair of Fiskars with my name on them I've had for so long and abused so badly (in high school they suffered through years of being forced to cut through Formica tile samples!) that now they're basically reduced to cutting wire and things that get them all gross and gummy.  But I still love them!

The totally weird looking ones on the left side of the work-scissors photo are used to trim away fabric edges when doing machine applique.  On the bottom right are my pinking shears.

The three pairs on the bottom are really the stars of my collection.

Three of my beautiful, solid Ginghers.

I suggest to anyone who has a little extra cash and wants to own a pair of scissors that will bring you joy, grab some Ginghers.
The pair on the top are pointed, knife-edged, and perfect for making small, intricate and clean cuts in either paper or fabric.
The middle pair are spring-loaded in order to reduce stress on the hands while cutting, plus they come with a fabulous steampunk style metal closure to keep them from attacking folks.
The bottom pair are specifically designed to give you extra leverage, so you can cut through tons of heavy layers super easily.  They may be the most fun to use scissors that I own, and they really shine when I use them to cut away all the excess layers of fabric, batting and laminate from the edge of a quilt after I've machined on the binding.

I have friends who laugh at the vastness of my scissors collection, and they're probably totally right, but I just laugh at them right back for owning only a single pair that aren't even sharp!