Where are the good scissors?

“Where are the good scissors?”

Growing up, this was a question my mother repeated often, growing more frustrated as my sisters and I got older. The “good scissors” differed from the numerous other pairs of scissors in the house as they were sharp and capable of reliably cutting through materials. Although the “good scissors” belonged in the cutlery drawer beside the stove, they were most often found anywhere else. When my mother would buy a new pair of good scissors to replace an old pair that had been lost – by us – we would promise her that once we had finished using them, we would return them promptly to the drawer where they belonged. We did not.

My mother is an industrious woman and used the good scissors for every task from cutting up bacon to cutting fabric for Halloween costumes – both tasks that are difficult with a dull pair of scissors. Unfortunately for her, my sisters and I also loved using the good scissors. Our projects were often creative and nearly always messy. They ranged from making paper snowflakes and leaving slivers of paper stuck in the living room carpet, to disastrous haircuts resulting in lop-sided straight bangs, and to the occasional sewing project that was started with enthusiasm before being abandoned. When the dreaded question of, “where are the good scissors?” was called out, there would be a scramble to check the places you had most recently left the scissors. Checking under the couch, pushing aside the bits of snowflake you hadn’t yet picked up; subtly slipping into the bathroom, checking for the scissors amid bottles of hair and face goop while sweeping up the left behind pieces of hair from your last haircutting adventure; shaking out your abandoned sewing project, checking for scissors caught up in the fabric.

I never really understood why my mother would get so frustrated by the ever-migrating pair of scissors. We could almost always find them, she just had to ask us where they were. In the years since I have left home, I’ve taken up embroidery, and have a new appreciation for a pair of easy-to-find, sharp scissors.

I started embroidery almost by accident – I wanted to gift my sister and her partner matching hats with their dog’s face embroidered on the front, but had left ordering far too late to receive them in time for Christmas. Slightly panicked, I decided to attempt to embroider the hats myself reasoning that if it went terribly, it would at least be a funny present to unwrap. I did some quick googling to decide what materials I needed and headed off to purchase the essentials. I found the hoops, thread, and needles quite easily and was about to leave the store when a cute pair of small pink craft scissors caught my eye. My first thought was that it would be ridiculous to buy a pair of scissors for this project. We had several pairs of scissors at home, and it was very possible that this would be my only attempt at embroidery. But there was a small part of me that was concerned that the scissors we had at home weren’t actually “good scissors”. I wasn’t sure how sharp they were, and they were a little too big and clumsy for what would (hopefully) be some very delicate needlework. Deciding it wasn’t worth the risk of having to use dull scissors, I tossed the craft scissors into my cart.

The scissors ended up being a very good purchase. They were sharp and small enough to easily maneuver around the embroidery hoop, and were essential for every part of the project; cutting out my design template, cutting away excess fabric hanging from the embroidery hoop, and most importantly, cleanly cutting embroidery thread so I could thread it through a needle. Although I felt the stress of the rapidly approaching deadline to finish the hats as I embroidered into the early hours of Christmas morning, I fell in love with the process of embroidery. I’m not very good at drawing, and have often felt that I’m not a creative person. But embroidery has become a way for me to make personal gifts for those I love. I’ve made necklaces, embroidered hats, and have done an embroidered scene of the front of a friend’s restaurant. Embroidery feels special and wholesome to me, and I love the process of creating something beautiful from a pile of thread. I love the methodical nature of the needlework, of laying down the threads so they line up and create something beautiful, or twisting them just right so they create a perfect knot, exactly where you want it. I love that you are able to create textured art where you can feel the different stitches that work together to become a flower, a brick wall, or a dog’s nose. I love the satisfying snipping sound of the scissors as you cut threads and fabric, and I especially love that my embroidery scissors are sharp, delicate, and always found in the place where they belong.