Seam ripping

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! =)
Myself I pretty much slept for 2 days straight when Christmas was over and all releases on our games had been done and all had gone well. Can't tell you the relief I feel each year when the 25h is finally over. Not much Christmas spirit I know, but we did celebrate Christmas with our dear friends and had a lovely day with very good food and good fun. 

I got a package from Quilt Direct with some much needed supplies a day or so before Christmas, such as a brand new cutting mat (mine turned all bubbly from the heat this summer and I've been meaning to get a new one for 4 or so months...), some batting, new needles etc and the must urgent thing,  a brand new seam ripper.

So while others are thinking about the holidays, I've been thinking about the happiness that I feel when I rip the first seams with a brand new seam ripper. You know,  before it goes all dull from use?

While it's my most trusty tool (I'm embarrassed to admit it but I go through a couple in a year...), there are few things I generally  hate to do more then unpick seams. So when I learned a handier way of doing it last summer, my life became much easier! Maybe I'm the only one who didn't know this but before, I'd try and separate the fabric and rip the seams between the two layers, a really bad method which often resulted in holes in the fabric and much frustration.

Now I simply cut up every 4th or so stitch on one side of the seam like so, it's a bit hard to tell in the photo but you just cut up every forth seam.

And then you can just pull on the thread on the other side like so and you have a reasonably quickly and neatly ripped seam with minimal risk for fabric damage.=)