Today’s post is about needles for hand-sewing, hand-quilting and embroidery. I’m going to share with you a selection of needles that I use in the studio and show you the various needle-cases that I keep them in.
First of all, let me show you my scissors and needle-case. i was fortunate enough to find this beautiful item in a charity shop. It is a zipped case full of needles with two pairs of scissors – all made in England. The needles are arranged in their case with printed gold labels(!): the sharps are for general sewing, the darners with their large eye are for mending using a wool thread and the embroidery needles with their slim, long eyes are for embroidery.
In the photo below you can see a sharps needle and below it a darner.
For hand-quilting you need a really short needle. I have a collection of quilting needles which I keep in the needle-case below, made and given to me by my friend Pat. It is useful to be able to thread up a number of needles with quilting thread at a time and have them all ready so that you can quickly begin another thread when the first runs out. The design of the needle-case means that the threads will spread out round the case and not get tangled up. Most of these needles are one inch long.
The needle-case folds up and closes neatly with a press-stud.
For machine-quilting, it is very useful to have ‘easy-thread needles’ like the one shown below. It has a sharp point but above the eye there is an open section so that the threads can be pulled into the eye from the top rather than needing to be pushed through the eye of the needle. ( You can see exactly how this works in this tutorial: https://amandajanetextiles.com/2020/01/27/how-to-add-quilting-to-a-quilt/ A blunt needle is required for needlepoint because a sharp needle would risk damaging the canvas.
These are kept in a hand-pieced patchwork needle case and I use them often. Make sure when you buy your easy-thread needles that you buy sharp ones and not the ones with a rounded tip which are used by cross-stitchers.
Sometimes, a large blunt needle is required, for example to help thread a drawstring through the casing of a bag (like this one, say).
I keep larger needles like this in a needle-case with covers made from plastic canvas with ribbon embroidery (exactly the sort of project that a large, blunt-ended, large-eyed needle was perfect for,
All manner of large and unusual needles are kept in this case, including this semi-circular needle which is useful for upholstery, for example.
Also within its covers are a couple of beading needles which are long and thin with a small eye. They can only be threaded with very fine thread but they will pass through the smallest of beads. Mine is slightly curved from being used.
I also have a miscellaneous selection of needles in this very pretty embroidered needle-case which belonged to my grandmother. It has a black binding,a bright yellow satin lining and six woven woollen pages within.
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You can make yourself a needle-case (along with other helpful sewing items with this pattern. Find it here
Amanda Jane Textiles 