Best Methods for Removing Stitches

Sooner or later, regardless of the type of sewing, garment sewing, home deck sewing, costume sewing, quilting, it doesn't matter. Sooner or later you're gonna have an oops and you're going to have to remove stitches, or the old school terminology, you're gonna have to rip 'em out. Well, literally you can do what the term says and get mad and rip your seams apart. But look what happens. When you do that, yes, it was fast, and you just gotta quick pick out the threads, but you have distorted the grain. You've distorted your seam. And even though you press it, this is just never really going to hang right or lay flat. So I really urge you, take your time and use the proper tool for the job and do it correctly. We'll forget about that method. You can also come in and use my two favorite tools. You have the ripper. Most of you got one of these with your sewing machine. It's in the tool kit. Or you can actually go out and buy higher quality rippers. The ones that come with the machines are, are really, they're cheap quality. They're inexpensive quality. They're inferior, but you can use them. And a ripper has a pointed end. The long end is very sharp, very pointed. And the other end has a little ball on it that's supposed to protect the fabric from being torn as you rip. And down inside it's a sharp area, and that's what's actually cutting the stitches. You almost could think of it like the edge of a razor blade or a knife, although it's not quite that sharp. The other tool I like, and which is my all-time favorite. In fact, it's my go-to now for removing stitches. These are made by Havel and they're called snips. There are other brands, but I have several pairs of these throughout my sewing room. One at every sewing machine, including my long arm, and a couple spares just in case because, yeah, it's not that I'm that bad of a seamstress, but things do happen and I don't wanna have to go searching for them. So I've got these everywhere that I sew. So with the ripper, there's a couple different ways that you can do this. You can come in here and you can just start picking the stitches out. What I like to do, because this can get a little tedious, is just come along and pop the threads there. Put it underneath and pop the thread every so often, about once an inch. Then you can come back kind of in the middle of that and give some pressure and just pick it up. And it's really quite simple to remove those stitches using that method. Oops. Just like that. Same thing with the snips. I like these because they just get under that. They're very pointed. They get right under and I can just snip away and then go in and do the same technique of just lifting and pulling. If I'm working at my long arm, you're having to remove stitches while it's on the machine and it's tight between those leaders. If you can work backwards from the direction that you sewed, you can actually pull this thread and get it going and put your snips under there and very quickly remove those stitches going down the line and remove your mistake in your quilting. It still is tedious. The stitches never come out as fast as they go in. It's much easier on the machine because the fabric's being held taut, but that's the best way. Get hold of one end of the thread, hold it. Give a little bit of pressure. Get your snips under there and just keep that concept going all the way down till you remove all of the stitches as you need to on the quilt. If your seam as already pressed open, you have the option of, and this is a typical way that people do, coming in here and using this ripper to get in and just go down and then you will come back to remove the stitches. It is fast, but occasionally you will get a tear on the edge of your seam, and that's why I don't like it as well because now you've got a hole. I like the snips a little bit better for doing the same thing. They seem to be a little more accurate and don't tear as much. I can't tell you why. They just don't. Perhaps it's because they're sharper. But that's another thing. And you're just putting a little bit of pressure. Personally, when I have something like this, rather than going down the center, I'd rather take my time, go back and move my seam to one side, press it down and then come in and take out the stitches the way I just showed you. If you're removing stitches this way, you do have to come back and you have to pick out the little bits of thread. Obviously you wouldn't be sewing black on pink. I'm doing this for demo purposes so you can see it, but it is something that you have to come back. And the more you have to do that, the more that fabric is being distorted. So again, I like just going in and picking out the stitches. What about if you have top stitching? It's sewed down. You've gotta take it out. Same type thing. Just come in and use that same method. Works very, very well. Either with the ripper or with your scissors and take it out. The other thing you can do is once you get it started if you really wanted to, you can come along and try and do this method, but I don't advise it 'cause again, you can jam the point in and there goes your garment and you'll have to start over. So just take your time. The best method is snip and lift, whether it's with a ripper or with snips. So to avoid having to rip is the best method. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ripping always takes longer than it does to put in the stitches. So cut accurately. Pin, pin, pin. Take your time and sew accurately and press. And then if you absolutely have to rip something out, because we are human, mistakes are made, use the proper tool for the job, either the ripper or the snips, and take your time and do it correctly with the snip and lift method.