If you’ve got a sewing machine, chances are your favourite tool will be your unpicker or seam ripper. For the uninitiated, these sharp little gems are fine blades that slice along a stitch on a garment – perfect for taking off clothes labels neatly. It wasn’t until a conversation about sewing started up in the Starts at Sixty office, that we discovered we’ve been using our unpickers the wrong way this whole time!

Here’s what we learnt: that small ball on one of the prongs? That’s to allow the unpicker to be slid along a garment in one swipe – no more fussing over individual stitches! Here’s a video to help explain.