Present help

[Living]

Can anyone suggest present ideas for my sister? She knits and has just started dress making as well. I am not at all crafty and keen to get her something that isn't a gimic but am clueless on where to start.

Budget is £40 (inc delivery) but that needs to cover two presents (birthday and Christmas). One can be small though - she just needs two packages to open

Any help really appreciated.

Scissors fiskars are great.

Box of assorted threads Here lovely to have a selection to hand.

Maybe some nice buttons in a tin?

Scissors or a cutting wheel, although that would be the "big" present of the two.

Pretty pins and thread and things like that make a good present and are always welcome.

not anything labelled as a "sewing kit" - they always seem to contain inferior versions of stuff any crafty person will already have.

Great thanks. If I'm going to get scissors/ a cutting wheel, what do I need to look for? Looked at Fiscars but there seemed to be a lot of choice!

Do you need a cutting mat with the wheel?

Possibly. I don't know! I can't really ask as will give away present.

One of the other posters here will know... :)

A cutting wheel does require a mat, so the only question is whether she has one. Does she have DP that you could ask?

She has a dp but I'm suspicious he won't know. Maybe I'll go with scissors instead

He might know - my DH would, purely because my cutting mat is big and green and always sat around being untidy

A nice set of good knitting needles - Cubics or other wooden ones?

I personally wouldn't buy a rotary cutter if she is dress making. I would get some good quality dressmaking scissors and some small, very sharp pointy ones for cutting threads or small fiddly things. They aren't cheap - about £20 for the dressmaking scissors and £10 for the small sharp ones.

You could put together a collection of other things like a stitch ripper, thimble, tailor's chalk or some other marking pen or pencil, tape measure, good quality needles (John James for hand sewing, Schmetz for machines) and put them in a pretty tin.

Magazine subscription to one of the many sewing or knitting magazines.

A book on the dressmaking and sewing. There are some great general ones around. It depends whether you think she would enjoy a book or whether she is likely to use Youtube or refer to the computer if she is stuck. I personally prefer a book with lots of pictures so you can keep referring back to the same bit without rewinding something on screen but we are all different.

Ok her DP did know about the cutting mat and remembers that she was thinking about getting one. I've praised him and he says the conversation was short so he was actually listening :)

Is it worth a cutting mat and scissors if the cutter isn't that useful for dress making ? Alternatively I can just get scissors (her DP is now mournful as he'd remembered something DS wanted and I've nabbed the idea!)

She may be quilting as well. Can't remember.

If she wants a cutting mat then she will be wanting a rotary cutter to go with it (and she is probably quilting)

Get the biggest mat you can afford.

Yes, you have to have a rotary cutter if you are quilting. Although dressmaking and patchwork are both just cutting up fabric, they are two different skills and need different tools.

If she is going to take up quilting you could do worse than get this although that doesn't leave much in the budget for the second present.

There is a whole new world of spending if you take up patchwork and quilting - a bundle of fat quarters would probably be good. You could look on eBay to get a bargain.