Nearly eight years ago I tried some embroidery scissors at a Knitting & Stitching Show workshop (before I started teaching there) and I was so impressed with them that I put them on my Christmas wish list. Small, sharp, manoeuvrable, and with very pointy blades, they were the perfect complement to the squissors I mostly used for Hardanger. I was given two pairs, in two different colours so I could keep one for goldwork and one for general embroidery. They turned out to be particularly effective for cutting around the buttonhole edging of projects like Windows on the World; that they came with a useful protective cap and in pretty colours was a bonus!

Three years later I wanted some spares and for various reasons ended up stocking them in Mabel’s Fancies’ shop. When the order came in I was pleasantly surprised to see that the new scissors came with pretty floral caps! No blue ones, though – the only ones I could get were purple and turquoise (or what the supplier called “green”).

Fast-forward several years and suddenly the company I always ordered these from no longer supplies them. I got the last few pairs they had, including some blue ones with plain caps, but then the search was on for a new supplier. Unfortunately I could only find retailers in America and Australia, and with the postage and import duty they were simply not an affordable option. I decided to try the manufacturer, hoping that they would be willing to stretch the definition of “wholesale” for a small outfit like mine. Their initial suggestion of a minimum order of 600 pairs nearly made me lose heart, but after a week’s email correspondence we managed to find a quantity we were both happy with.

But no turquoise. Which is a shame because it really is a very pretty colour. No blue either. Purple, yes. And pink. Any orders placed would be half purple, half pink.

Now I know Mabel’s logo is pale pink and turquoise, but oddly enough I’m not really a pink girl myself. Still, that was the only option and I did want to keep stocking these useful little scissors, so the order was placed and late last week there arrived on our doorstep a box full of purple and pink floral snippers. And the pink turned out to be quite a robust fuchsia colour which is definitely growing on me!

Which means that if you want to get yourself a pair of these pretty 4″ embroidery scissors, for the time being you’ve got a choice of no fewer than four colours. Of the floral-capped ones we have purple and pink in quantity, and a limited number of turquoise; plus a small number of blue with plain caps.

And they all cut equally well .

I love my squissors, as you all know. Especially for Hardanger, but they can be used quite effectively as all-round embroidery scissors as well, snipping threads and waste knots with as much ease and accuracy as cutting fabric threads surrounded by Kloster blocks. There is, however, one thing that they aren’t very good at – cutting very closely around a buttonhole edging or other type of hem. For that I’ve got the small, very sharp, very pointy scissors I mentioned a few years ago, and I love them nearly as much as my squissors. So sharp and pointy are they that they could probably be used for Hardanger as well, although I haven’t tried it. And they look attractive with their coloured finger holes and protective cover. Together, this pretty pair of rainbow-coloured squissors and transparently coloured scissors are all I need as far as cutting is concerned. (When stitching, I mean; I don’t count the scissors needed for cutting the fabric to size beforehand, although these scissors could probably do the job perfectly well for small to medium-sized projects.)

Because I like to have spares of any tool that I find really useful (as you never know when these things may get discontinued or changed or “improved” or whatever) and because I always like to have spare scissors around, preferably one per project (and I am, as you may have realised by now, a multiple-project girl) I decided to see if I could find some more of these. I did, but unfortunately postage for one or two pairs was rather prohibitive. Postage for sixteen pairs, however, was quite reasonable, so I said to myself, “if I like them that much, mightn’t other stitchers like them too? And if so, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have them on Mabel’s Fancies?” Myself thought this was a spiffing idea, and so here they are for your delight: useful, accurate and pretty embroidery scissors!