Are you looking for the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for a sewing lover in your life?  As someone who loves sewing clothes, but has been on the receiving end of some well-intentioned but odd sewing gifts, let me tell you that your loved one does not want cutesy pins or bundles of cheerful quilting cottons, no matter how beautifully packaged those gifts may be at the store.  Instead, they want gifts that will actually help them sew garments that they will love.  In today’s post, I list some gift ideas for sewing lovers, based on their skill level and the types of garments they make.

Best gifts for any garment sewer

The gifts below are great for any sewer of garments, regardless of skill level or the type of garment they like to make.

• Gift card for an online fabric store.  I know that many people feel that gift cards are too impersonal, but fabric choice is a deeply personal thing and you’re bound to get it wrong if you try to pick out fabric for your loved one.  Better just to get them a gift card for a fabric store with a large selection of fabric, so they can pick out the perfect fabric for their project by themselves.  Mood Fabrics has an enormous selection of fashionable fabrics (including designer remnants) and they offer gift cards.  Fabric.com also has a seemingly endless selection of fabric, and you can buy Amazon gift cards that can be used to buy products from Fabric.com.  (Fabric.com is an Amazon subsidiary.)

• Gift certificate to Spoonflower.  If your friend loves sewing with printed fabrics and she/he has an artistic bent, let them create their own printed fabrics by getting them a gift certificate to Spoonflower, an on-demand, digital printing company that prints custom fabric.  They can either choose from the hundreds of pre-existing designs, or they can upload their own design and print the exact fabric they want.

• Personalized clothing labels.  Clothing labels with your loved one’s name or logo adds the perfect finishing touch to any handmade garment.  There are lots of companies that offer custom labels, but I personally would recommend going with the Dutch Label Shop because they offer woven (not printed!) labels in small quantities (starting at 30 labels), which makes them a good choice for home sewers.

Best gifts for sewing beginners

If your loved one has just started sewing, chances are they already have some of the basics – a sewing machine, a pair of scissors and some basic pins.  Help them develop their sewing skills by getting them the following:

• Singer: The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing.  This essential reference book covers all of the basic techniques of garment sewing, complete with lots of high-quality photographs.  A great first book for any sewing library.

• Magnetic pincushion.  Make your sewer’s day by putting a magnetic pincushion in their stocking.  Sure, cloth pincushions are cute, but you have to manually stick each pin into the pincushion.  With the magnetic pincushion, all you have to do is throw the pin in the general direction of the pincushion, or wave the pincushion over a pile of pins, and the pins all immediately stick to the pincushion.  I never thought that such a simple thing could make such a big difference, but trust me, it does.

• Magnetic seam guide.  This nifty little tool helps sewers sew a line that is a consistent width from the edge of the fabric.  Using this tool can easily and drastically improve the neatness of stitching.  A great stocking stuffer for beginner sewers.

• A decent iron + ironing board.  One of the most significant contributors to the quality of handmade garments is good ironing, and your sewing enthusiast needs a good quality steam iron and ironing board to press properly.  I recommend the Black & Decker Digital Advantage iron, and a full-sized ironing board if your loved one has the space for it.

Best Gifts for Intermediate Sewers

If your loved one is beyond the beginner stage, but she/he still doesn’t own every sewing item under the sun, then consider making their day by gifting them the following:

• Marfy magazine/catalogue.  Marfy is an Italian pattern company renowned for their impeccably drafted patterns and flattering fit.  Every year, they produce a gorgeous catalogue of their patterns filled with tons of line drawings of their patterns.  They’ve also recently released an “Evergreen” catalogue that collects hundreds of their best classic patterns, and each edition includes 8 or 10 free printed patterns.  A fantastic and inspiring gift for the more advanced sewer.

• Burda magazine subscription.  Burda magazine is the pre-eminent European pattern magazine for sewers who like to keep up with fashion trends.  Each issue of the magazine includes several patterns which can be traced out and sewn.  A year-long subscription to this magazine is a great gift for intermediate sewers.

• Dress form.  No sewing studio is complete without a dress form, and you can add the final professional touch to your loved one’s sewing space by gifting them a pro PGM dress form.  A particularly good choice for aspiring fashion students who want to learn draping or flat pattern drafting.

• Draping for Apparel Design.  Complement that dress form with this textbook on draping, which walks you step-by-step through the process of draping most of the basic silhouettes that you see in modern fashion.  A great gift for serious students of patternmaking.

Best Gifts for Sewers of Jackets and Coats

If your sewing lover friend likes to sew tailored garments like jackets and coats, help them develop their tailoring skills by gifting the following:

• Tailoring: the Classic Guide to Sewing the Perfect Jacket. This book walks through each and every step of tailoring, including shaping your collar, shaping the jacket front and back, tailoring a notched collar, tailoring pockets and setting in sleeves, all shown with step-by-step photos. A great reference book for tailoring enthusiasts.

• Twill tape. This stuff is essential when tailoring garments. A spool of twill tape would make a great stocking stuffer.

• Tailor’s ham and seam roll. These are essential pressing tools that help sewers shape different parts of their tailored garment. Go with the basic original from Dritz, or get a little more festive with some cute printed sets from Etsy.

• Clapper.  A clapper is a block of wood that sewers use to get flat, crisp seams without burning them.  A must-have for serious sewers.

• Gravity feed iron. The ultimate pressing tool for sewers who need a lot of steam power. The gravity feed iron is on most serious sewers’ want lists, but many of us won’t spend the money on this luxury item. Gift one and your sewing friend will love you forever. Really.

Best Gifts for Sewers of Silk

If your sewing enthusiast friend loves to sew garments from silk or other slippery fabrics, gift them the tools they need to conquer these notoriously difficult-to-work-with fabrics:

• Rotary cutter, pattern weights and cutting mat.  It’s much faster and more accurate to use a rotary cutter to cut slippery fabrics like silk, rather than pinning and then cutting with fabric scissors (because the fabric tends to shift when the fabric is cut with scissors).  Help your friend maintain their sanity when sewing with silk by gifting them a rotary cutter and a large cutting mat, plus some pattern weights to weigh down the patterns on the mat.

• Thin pins.  Ordinary pins can leave holes in silk and other delicate fabrics, so save your friend from a whole bunch of holes by gifting them a box of these glass head dressmaker’s pins.

• Spray stabilizer.  Save your loved one hours of aggravation by stuffing a can of spray stabilizer into their Christmas stocking.  This stuff temporarily make silk stiffer and easier to work with, and it can be washed out after the sewing is complete.

• Walking foot.  This makes it much easier to sew delicate fabrics or leather that would shift around if you used an ordinary presser foot.  This will stop your sewing friend from tearing their hair out because their expensive silk fabric got eaten in the sewing machine.  Check out this link for walking feet for several brands of sewing machines.

I hope this helps you find the perfect gift for your sewing lover! Let me know in the comments if you have any other great gift ideas for sewers.