Chances are that if you sew or craft in some form or other, you probably have a pair of the famous orange handled scissors in your tool box. I have been writing articles and projects for Fiskars since last summer and I've been lucky enough to have been given a lot of their products. I have a pair of scissors next to my sewing machine, a pair right next to my serger, my fabric shears on my sewing table and a couple of pairs of truly wonderful MicroTip Scissors No. 5 within easy reach. Not only is my sewing room incredibly well equipped with Fiskars tools, it's also pretty safe to say that I can stand in any room in my house and lay my hands on a pair of Fiskars almost without even taking a step. I have also become incredibly fussy about what scissors I use for which job. I won't bore you with the details but just know that I am VERY particular and don't you DARE use my thread cutters for trimming bacon fat.

Honestly, (and they're not paying me to say this) the Fiskars scissors are great and I do ALOT of sewing/cutting/crafting. My absolute favorites are my 9" dressmaker shears because they are so sharp and cut right to the very tip of the blade. They are the kind of scissors that you don't want to cut yourself with because you'd be in danger of losing an arm or two and that would be a shame. I also love the weight and feel of my 8" forged scissors. They aren't quite as comfortable to use as the shears, but I really love that they are an all metal design. They make me feel like I'm using some kind of old tool that it isn't necessary to reinvent because it's already perfect.

I cringe when I go to fabric stores nowadays because I stand there as they cut my yardage with some crappy blunt scissors. The women wear wrist supports (presumably because they get RSI from all their hard work cutting) and the cutting line on the fabric is pretty pathetic. It's all I can do to stop myself smuggling my own scissors into the store and offering to cut up my own yardage.

Anyway, it's the 45th anniversary of the orange handled Fiskars and they have a lot of fun stuff going on over on their website and also their FB page. As part of the celebrations, the Fiskars design team were given the challenge to create some projects using ONLY a pair of orange handled scissors as a tool.

My fellow designer Tania Willis came up with this gorgeous project for a kid's puppet theater. (Do you like how I spelled theater? US spelling is almost second nature to me these days - and I'm a bit of a grammar snob). My kids would love this and I think it might be a project for the future.

I decided to use my scissors to make my own jersey yarn.

I uses this yarn to crochet myself a rug and it's lovely. I put it in my sewing room and it helps keep my feet warm as I work away.

You can find out how I made my jersey yarn and also the pattern I came up with for the rug by clicking here.

Do you own any orange handled Fiskars? Are you as particular as me when it comes to assigning jobs to your scissors? Or am I the weird one?