How to Sharpen Scissors and Rotary Cutting Blades at Home

There is nothing like cutting fabric with a pair of sharp scissors or better, yet a rotary cutter.

Unfortunately using them to cut fabric also dulls the blades on your scissors and rotary cutter. Have you tried to cut fabric with dull scissors? It’s more like chewing fabric than making nice, crisp, clean cuts.

As a kid, I vaguely remember fabric stores holding fabric scissor sharpening events to draw shoppers to the store. In all honesty, I’ve never heard of one now that I’m an adult with a drawer full of dull fabric cutting tools and blades that need a little sharpening love.

What to do?

Easy! You can sharpen scissors and rotary cutting tools yourself!

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How to Sharpen Fabric Scissors and Rotary Cutting Blades the Easy Way!

The tutorial for sharpening a rotary cutter is the same as sharpening a pair of scissors. I’m focusing on fabric cutting tools but honestly, you can sharpen any type of scissors you have at home using the same technique. Of course, you’ll need to use caution afterwards because your cutting tools will have sharp blades!

You will need:

Fabric Scissors – you can treat yourself to a quality pair of fabric scissors here

Rotary cutter, fabric cutting mat,  and quilting ruler

Aluminum foil

Disclosure: I am including affiliate links in this post for your convenience

Step by Step How to Do It Tutorial:

1. Fold a piece of aluminum foil over on itself at least four times. As for size, you want a piece of foil that will allow you to cut it several times with the scissors you want to sharpen. In this tutorial, the size of my tin foil is what a restaurant used  to wrap the naan we ordered on Quarantine Take Out Date Night. I wiped the reused aluminum foil clean and dried it before I used it to sharpen my fabric scissors and rotary cutters, otherwise, ew.

2.  Chose your own sharpening adventure!

How to sharpen scissors:

Cut the folded aluminum foil in small strips with the dull scissors to sharpen them. The more you use them to cut the aluminum foil, the sharper the scissor blades will become.

How to sharpen a rotary cutter:

Put the aluminum foil on a fabric cutting mat, and using the quilting ruler as a guide, cut the folded aluminum foil into small strips with the dull rotary cutter blade to sharpen them. The more you use it to cut the aluminum foil, the sharper the rotary cutter blade will become.

3. Carefully cut all the things with your sharp rotary cutter or  sharp scissors! Or both!

Looking for more fabric scissors and quilting rotary tool recommendations? Check out the following options - and more! - below!


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