Cutting into Your Design Process

A major part of the design process is planning. This includes thinking about the tools that can make your process as productive as possible. Starter supplies include a sewing machine, needles, tape measures, pins, and thread. Cutting tools such as scissors, rotary cutters, or automated machinery are also important to consider as they can simplify your process and speed it up! Let’s consider different uses for cutting tools at different stages and scales of your production process.

Starting Small with a Sketch

As you’re developing your ideas, you might also wonder what materials you will use. For a button-down short sleeve shirt, will it be cotton, polyester, or even denim? We offer a wide selection of options to help you cut out your patterns from fabrics of your choosing. Our cutting supplies include traditional scissors, pinking shears, rotary cutters, as well as ergonomic and left-hand options. Our selection of specialized scissors can be used for embroidery, applique, quilting, pinking, and buttonholes purposes. The Goldstar embroidery scissors featured below have an extremely unique look with their gold-plated, bird design features. Their sharpness can help increase accuracy and precision to cut fine threads. We also have clippers to snip threads close to your fabric, which can create a clean finished look that is highly desirable!

Scaling Up with a Swatch Book

As you continue to develop your design ideas, you may also consider different fabric color possibilities. You can use our pinking shears or a swatch cutter to create an elegant selection of swatches that you may use as a reference. The sawtooth blade of pinking shears creates a zig-zag cut edge as a finish to fabrics. Our swatch cutter featured below can save time based on the all-in-one pull-lever and cutting mat. It also has options for sawtooth or a straight blade for cutting and can cut fabrics up to ¾” high. The selection of swatch cutters can cut fabrics from 12” to 24” and we also offer heavy duty swatch cutters with stands. You can create a swatch book to professionally present material choices to others and get feedback without worrying about the fabrics fraying over time!

Scaling Up your Sketch

As you digitize your sketch to match technical design protocol, you might consider how many samples you want to produce. If you create one sample, you may only have to cut out one set of patterns. But if you are past the sample stage in the full production stage, you will need to replicate your cutting process for each set of patterns. This can be time consuming with traditional scissors, but you can speed up the process with our rotary cutters. You can hold the rotary cutter in one hand and slide it along your cutting line. We have traditional rotary cutters, laser rolling cutters, and an electric rotary cutter.

The electric rotary cutter featured above has a high-power motor, is versatile, and light. It can help increase efficiency and reduce fatigue in the cutting process as you roll the blade through your fabric. It is best for light to medium weight fabrics and can cut through 1.5” fabrics at a time. It also has a built-in sharpener, and comes with several extra parts, such as an extra blade, motor brushes, and grease.

If you are looking to scale up your production in the hundreds or thousands, you can prepare your fabrics with one of our high-speed fabric cutting machines. The semi-automatic end cutter featured below can cut a straight line up to 96” of fabric. The head of the machine returns quickly after cutting the fabric. It also has an automatic counting and stacking feature if you are working with multiple layers of fabrics. It can be used for fabrics including silk, cotton, nylon, leather, and many others!

This can help improve productivity and the quality of cutting by ensuring that your fabrics are cut straight and on the grain. Imagine being able to cut 1,000 6 x 8 feet fabrics quickly to prepare them for more individualized cutting with the pattern pieces? It can be very time consuming to measure, mark, and cut each fabric individually. The process can be sped up with an automated cutting machine like this one.

Styling with Synthetics

If you want to prevent your synthetic fabrics such as polyester, nylon, or vinyl from fraying, we offer a variety of hot knives that can seal edges as they automatically cut fabrics. This can be helpful for fashion accessories like handbags, backpacks, as well as household and industrial textiles. The machines have high accuracy and are easy to operate.

Helping your Cutting Supplies Last

We also offer a selection of scissor and rotary cutter blade sharpeners to help make your base products last as long as possible. For machinery, a few of the items we offer are bolts, bearings, base plates, screws, carbon brushes, chargers, and plugs. Please view our site for a more comprehensive list.

Reflecting on your Design Process

As you consider the vast possibilities for design, think about key items that can improve your production process. Choosing the right pair of scissors or rotary cutter can truly make the difference. The scale of your production, whether small or large, can also factor into your decision of choosing a hand-operated cutting tool, or automated cutting machine. This can also make significantly impact your production process. As you develop your design ideas and begin the production process, remember to think about the tools that will be most beneficial to you!

We have shown a few of our cutting supplies here, but we carry a wide variety to meet your needs as best as possible! Please visit our site for more detailed information