Inspiration comes from all around us, but sometimes it’s the tools and materials we find that propel us toward creativity. If you would like to encourage a friend or family member to explore their artistic side, consider offering presents that speak to their maker spirit. From small gadgets to top-of-the-line sewing machines and sergers, we’ve selected tools that will give any sewist a boost: These items are fun to work with and lead to satisfying results. We’ve also picked kits, notions, and books that may well be put to use before the year ends. You can also give an experience or useful service—these are always appreciated. Of course, because each gift we present here has practical use, you can easily justify getting them for yourself. We don’t judge.

Practically Perfect Notions

Nice-looking accessories that make fiddly tasks faster and easier, or that maintain order in your sewing space, increase your productivity while bringing a smile to your face.

Stylish thread storage

Threads Pegs, a woman-owned business in the United Kingdom, offers handsome wooden storage boards for a range of thread bobbins, spools, or cones. The owner, Laura ter Kuile, makes each board by hand in her studio, based in a barn. You can choose from the many sizes listed on her website, or even order a custom size to suit your needs.

ThreadPegs.com; $19.00 and up

Aide memoire

Designed by someone who knows the frustration of trying to identify which needle is in their machine, the Needle Noter will save you time and eyestrain. The rotating disks can be set to indicate the needle size and style you’ve installed. The Needle Noter can be attached to your machine with hook-and-loop tape, so you never lose it.

NeedleNoter.net; $14.95

Speedy yo-yo tools

Yo-yos, or fabric circles gathered into playfully textured Os, are usually more fun in greater numbers. This is where Clover’s yo-yo makers come in. Available in five sizes, the plastic disk and stitching plate speed up the process. The tool functions as a cutting template, stitching guide, and stitching hoop all in one, giving you excellent control as you make your yo-yos.

Clover-USA.com; $5.50 to $11.95

Labels for days

Advent calendars are trendy lately, and your favorite sewist will get a kick out of this adorably illustrated version, filled with new label designs by Kylie and the Machine. After weeks of surprises, they’ll be able to start stitching these labels into a year’s worth of me-made garments. Win-win!

KylieAndTheMachine.com; $68.00

Tools for snipping and gripping

Floriani’s essential tool set includes tweezers, curved embroidery scissors, appliqué scissors, close trimmers, and precision micro-tip scissors. Anyone engaged in textile and stitching crafts, from quilting to machine embroidery, will find these useful. The metallic blue finish keeps these small tools visible among your materials, and the blue zippered carrying case ensures they stay sharp and in place for when you need them.

Floriani Essential Tool Set, Moore-Sew.com; $99.99

Needle selection guide

Choosing the right hand-sewing needle for each project can make a big difference in your sewing experience and, ultimately, how the project turns out. Colonial Needle’s new Needle Wheel eliminates the sometimes confusing job of needle selection by matching your project and chosen thread weight to the suitable needle size, no matter what brand of needle you use. Beginners and experienced sewists alike will appreciate this information.

Colonial Needle Wheel, ColonialNeedle.com; $17.99

Palm protection

This lightweight palm thimble from Colonial Needle is so helpful for sashiko and boro stitching, when you are pushing long needles through fabric layers. The dimples on the adjustable ring’s plate help prevent needle slippage while you are making the stitches.

ColonialNeedle.com; $5.99

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Kits and DIY Fun

A kit or other interactive present will tempt just about anyone to start sewing. We love these offerings from small businesses and independent artists who want to share the joy of making.

Pretty bra supplies

Lingerie sewing can be almost addictive. The garments are small and relatively quick to assemble, and the fabrics are delightful. Author and designer Maddie Kulig has brought together all the pieces you need to create pretty bras, panties, bodysuits, and more, and everything in each kit is color-coordinated.

Madalynne.com; $20.00 to $62.00

Earth tones

Experimenting with fashion illustration, textile design, or intuitive mark-making takes on more meaning when you use paints made from soil-based pigments. The Art of Soil’s natural paint “ecopods” and wooden palettes are made in-house by a scientist-artist family and are so attractive you may not want to use them. However, you can purchase ecopod collections on cards to refill your palette, so wet your brush and get started.

TheArtOfSoil.com; $18.00 to $250.00

Coloring books for fashionistas

When you’re not sewing, you can still have fun with fashion with this selection of beautifully drawn coloring books, representing styles from many eras. Explore your Bridgerton Netflix television series fantasies with empire fashions, or work your way through the 20th century, from the 1920s to the streets of Paris today. Watercolors, like the Art of Soil paints mentioned above, work well  as do markers or colored pencils.

Fashions of the 1950s and 60s (Sleepy Dog Press, 2021); Amazon.com; $7.99

Empire Fashions (Dover, 2001); Amazon.com$5.99

Fashions of the Roaring Twenties (Dover, 2013); Amazon.com; $4.99

Paris Street Style (Potter Style, 2016); Amazon.com; $15.50

Stitch a story

“A Mending,” by Shing Yin Khor, is a game that involves embroidery, mapping, and story-building. Its theme is friendship and creating connections. It can be played solo, or with two or more people. The set includes a deck of prompt cards, printed fabric map, a carrying case, and play booklet. You supply the stitching and embellishment materials.

ShingYinKhor.bigcartel.com; $50.00

 

A cozy shirt kit

For comfort and low-key style, a plaid flannel shirt is a classic. Make your own, or entice someone else to try sewing one, with a kit from Forest & Thread. You’ll receive fabric, thread, buttons, interfacing, and a pattern (which you can use again for another shirt).

ForestAndThread.com; $47.00 to $56.00

Embroidery with friends

Create your own little sewing group by stitching 100 adorable women figures. Brooklyn Haberdashery offers “100 Ladies” fabric printed with rows of figures in various outfits, and, with colorful threads from one of their curated assortments, you’re ready to stitch. Sajou embroidery needles are a good choice for these materials. Experiment with decorative stitches to create patterns, solids, and textures. The finished piece can be used to make bags, pillows, or small charms from individual figures. For fun, add a set of flower pins to your order—and be sure to use them to brighten your work.

BrooklynHaberdashery.com; fabric, $13.00; threads sets, $8.50; Sajou embroidery needles, $8.50; glass-head flower pins, $16.90

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Services and Experiences

Even a die-hard DIY-er sometimes needs help, and we’ve found a couple of services that can save time and enhance a sewist’s results. Plus, consider a once-in-a-lifetime trip to replenish your stores of creativity.

Big-time printing

If your sewing buddy struggles to get started on their project, you can give them a gentle nudge with a gift card from a handy resource. The Plotted Pattern prints PDF patterns quickly, accurately, and on your choice of A0-size paper stock. The time saved by not assembling a pattern printed on letter/A4-size paper can go straight into cutting and sewing a garment. And each pattern is nicely wrapped, as a gift should be.

ThePlottedPattern.com; from $2.40 to $3.40 per A0 page

Head out on an adventure

Our interest is piqued by Rebecca Devaney’s half-day textile tours of Paris, which take travelers from flea markets to haute couture boutiques, with stops to shop for the finest of notions, threads, trims, and other haberdashery.

TextileToursOfParis.com; €120.00 and up

Behind the Scenes Adventures offer textile-themed trips to places like the Silk Road, Turkey, Morocco, Bhutan, Laos, Cambodia, and India. Guide Cynthia Samake leads you through regions that may be difficult to access on your own.

BTSAdventures.com; $5,695.00 and up

Professional Buttonholes

For those who dilly-dally about putting the final touches on their garments, a gift card to FabulousButtonholes.com makes a thoughtful present. Professionally stitched buttonholes of several styles will enhance a garment and remove the stress of sewing these important details.

FabulousButtonholes.com; $2.00 to $5.00 per buttonhole

 

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Updated Sewing Machines and Sergers

The latest in sewing machines answer the wishes of a variety of sewists. Newbies may enjoy a retro-styled entry-level model, while quilters like a lot of sewing space. Those who sew knits will be delighted with an innovative coverstitch machine.

Beyond-basic coverstitching

The Babylock Applaud top coverstitch serger offers something new—a dual wiper system—that can create decorative chain- and coverstitches on the right side of your work. Two thread holders, or wipers, move decorative threads side to side in front of up to three machine needles, enabling those needles to couch the threads. The machine also has a needle up/down feature; automatic Extraordinair machine threading; automatic thread delivery (ATD) for even tension; and the option to use up to six threads at once.

Babylock.com/Applaud; MSRP: $4,449.00

Speedy straight-stitcher

Bernette’s b08 straight stitch machine does one thing only, and does it well. It sews at up to 1600 stitches per minute, and has a bobbin that holds 40 percent more thread than a standard bobbin. This adds up to optimal functionality for anyone making quilts, draperies, large home-decor items, or other projects that benefit from speed, power, and control. Its metal body minimizes vibration so you can zip along seams with no worries.

Bernette.com; $2,499.00  (available from other vendors for $1,999.00)

Retro look for modern sewists

Billed as a heavy-duty sewing machine with enhanced piercing power on heavy fabrics, the metal frame Singer HD 500 weighs over 14.5 pounds, for added stability. The vintage-look machine comes with the basics: five machine feet and 23 built-in stitches, one-step buttonhole feature, built-in needle threader, and free arm.

Singer.com; MSRP: $399.99

All the space you need

One of Elna’s top-shelf computerized models, the Excellence 770 has many features: a large sewing space that’s well-lit by nine LED lights; long free arm; 350 built-in stitches; a 9.0-mm stitch width; built-in needle threader; and a knee lift. The machine’s many sensors help with sewing buttonholes, stitching through multiple layers of heavy fabric, and ensuring that you use compatible
throat plate and stitches. The LCD touchscreen even shows actual size of the selected stitch.

Elna.com; MSRP: $3,999.00

Extralarge embroidery machine

The Bernina 990 is an aspirational machine for anyone who loves to sew garments, quilts, or embroidery. In addition to its Giant Hoop, which can stitch a 12-inch square area in a single hooping, it has 14 inches of space to the right of the needle, a sizable display screen and placement scanner, for easy and precise motif placement.  There are thousands of built-in stitch patterns and embroidery designs, enough to keep you occupied for years. It’s hard to think of anything this machine can’t do.

Bernina.com; $22,999

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Reading to Inspire

Sure, you can go online to find information and ideas, but a beautifully illustrated book is so much nicer. These selections will set the recipient on a path to renewed creativity.

New life for old quilts

This 127-page book gives instructions for creating 10 garments or accessories from unused quilts and those that have seen better days. The project patterns are available as pdf downloads through the supplied links or QR codes. You’ll learn how to select and prep a quilt for your project, how to lay out the project’s pattern pieces to take advantage of a quilt’s design, and how to honor the quiltmaker’s work.

Reclaimed Quilts by Kathleen McVeigh and Dale Donaldson (C&T, 2024); $29.95

Sashiko for the family

The Japanese technique of hand-stitched sashiko fills our need for a meditative activity that yields a lovely result. Learn about it in Susan Briscoe’s detailed book or her card deck. Tempt your younger friends to join in with Sanae Ishida’s illustrated storybook Sashiko’s Stitches, which offers a way for children to handle big feelings.

Sashiko 365 and Ultimate Sashiko Card Deck by Susan Briscoe (David & Charles, 2022 and 2023); book, $24.99, and deck, $16.99; Sashiko’s Stitches by Sanae Ishida (WorthyKids, 2024); $18.99

How to duplicate wardrobe favorites

Your most loved clothes can be copied, without taking them apart. Claire-Louise Hardie, former producer on the BBC’s The Great British Sewing Bee, walks you through the process of tracing a pattern from a garment, so you can sew new versions whenever you like. Her instructions are clear and well illustrated, and she covers items such as T-shirts, trousers, a button-front shirt, a dress, and a skirt. The techniques you’ll learn can be applied to other pieces, as well.

Clone Your Clothes by Claire-Louise Hardie (David & Charles, 2024); $24.99

Sew sustainably

Learn to sew while using recycled and upcycled textiles. Ingrid Bergtun and Ingrid Vik Lysne’s book Sew for Yourself teaches you to work with materials sourced from places other than a fabric store—to give you a creative push. The book includes five basic patterns with instructions for sewing 50 different garments, from pants to T-shirts, button-front shirts, dresses, jackets, jumpsuits, skirts, and bags. The sizes extend to a 46-inch chest and 50-inch hips. Each of the 60+ pattern testers is portrayed and acknowledged in the back of the book, so you know these designs have been sewn and worn. The authors share sewing techniques, as well as creative solutions for redesigning and mending existing clothes. The book is a weighty hardback, with lots of photos and diagrams. A confident beginner will enjoy paging through and trying out the many projects.

Sew for Yourself by Ingrid Bergtun and Ingrid Vik Lysne (Schiffer Publishing, 2023); $49.99

Finding color in nature

Julie Beeler’s book shares what’s she’s learned from creating mushroom-based dyes and pigments and is a companion to her site, MushroomColorAtlas.com.  The 288-page hardcover guide, with beautiful illustrations and dozens of watercolor swatches, is divided into three sections: a compilation of colors that the fungi can produce; mushroom types, with illustrations and information on how to identify and find them; and the process Beeler uses to extract color from mushrooms, complete with several dye-making recipes. The book also includes a glossary and a helpful list of additional in-print and online resources.

The Mushroom Color Atlas (Chronicle Books, 2024); $35.00

Impressive textiles

Fabric has always been a precious commodity, made through time-consuming effort and skill. Through the centuries and around the globe, artisans have pushed the boundaries of what a textile could be. Dyeing, printing, and all manner of weaving and embellishing techniques have been put to use in the service of crafting sumptuous fabrics. The finest of these have been preserved and compiled into two books that are sure to delight you—and perhaps provide inspiration for your own textile practice.  Stephen Ellcock’s Book of Textiles focuses on a collection of pieces primarily from Asia, Africa, and Europe. The objects are sorted into conceptual categories based on motifs, symbolism, function, and more. If Ellcock’s 226-page book of images isn’t enough, look for Taschen’s two-volume (888 pages) set by Aziza Gril-Mariotte. Five centuries of printed textiles are covered, with stunning, often full-page images.

Stephen Ellcock’s Book of Textiles: The Karun Thakar Collection (Acc Art Books, 2024); $30.00  

The Book of Printed Fabrics: From the 16th Century Until Today, (Taschen, 2024); $200.00