Gracie's favourite tools for cutting on the bias

Bias garments can be intimidating at first!! Here are a few simple tools that can help make the process a breeze. (Note no links are affiliates). 

  • Tissue paper - this is particularly handy for when your fabrics are slippery. Plain old gift style tissue paper does the trick to give your fabric something to grip to while you cut, reducing the movement of the fabric. Sandwich your fabric by laying one sheet of tissue paper out flat, placing fabric on top with pattern pieces as the final layer.
  • Pins, pins & more pins! Particularly if cutting with scissors. Make sure to use extra sharp/fine pins on delicate fabrics to prevent snagging.
  • Rotary cutter & cutting mat.
  • Corner ruler to help to identify the bias.
  • Tailor's chalk/fabric marker - I suggest to mark notches instead of clipping them when sewing bias garments to reduce unintentional stretching.

Another handy product, that isn't cutting related but I adore for hemming, particularly bias cut hems is ban-rol. You'll see me using this in my youtube tutorial! If you purchase this, you'll need to prepare it for hemming by removing 5 or so threads along the length.

To see how I use some of these tools to cut on the bias, check out this video