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| Did you know that there's a right needle for every job? |
Or when was the last time you paid any attention to the hand sewing needles that you already have?
Until I bought these repair needles recently, I hadn't purchased hand sewing needles since... I don't know when.
And I paid for that negligence. When I made a version of my portable pocket pouch out of ribbon, the layers were so thick along the bottom that I broke my needle while sewing it up by hand.
More recently, hubby — he who convinced me to sew him a winch cover several years ago — has given me sport sandals and a heavy duty storage bag to repair.
The sandals were hard enough. The fastener that breaks apart is made out of plastic and to sew a replacement (which we retain from older sandals) back on, you have to drive that needle through the faux leather and back up one of the existing holes in the plastic fastener.
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| I have to find my way around the red dashed line to do this repair... |
I've done this same repair three times; broke a needle once. (He's been buying this same style of sandal over and over and like many things, the quality has suffered over the years. The fasteners on the early ones weren't so brittle or maybe they weren't so plastic.)
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| These are the needles that I've had since "forever"... |
It didn't help that all I had to choose from were these needles. These are technically embroiderers, darners and assorted (multi-purpose) needles.
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| The "darners"... |
Since I wasn't doing much embroidery and darning (of socks?), I usually reached for my assorted pack.
But it was the repair of this storage bag that took the cake — my middle finger ended up being severely calloused and sore for about two weeks — as I had to sew along a curve through plastic "piping". (Yes, I had a thimble, but there were times when I just couldn't do what I needed to do without taking it off.)
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| The yellow line shows where I had to sew... |
That experience led me to pick up the package that you see at the top of this post. And wouldn't you know it, it only cost me $1.50.
It includes these funky needles.
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| For the trouble that they save, every sewing kit should have a set of these needles... |
The curved ones are labelled mattress needles, but are useful for any type of repair where you cannot access the interior or underside easily.
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| Unobstructed view of needle tips... |
The storage bag repair would have gone a lot more smoothly had I had one of these. If nothing else, most of them seem stronger than what I was using. (Yes, I broke another needle doing that repair.)
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| Some easy threading sharps for regular sewing... |
The package included some self threading sharps as a bonus. As you can see, they have a regular eye for threading in a conventional fashion as well as a "calyx" eye on top that you can just pull against to thread.
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| All threading should be this easy... |
It sounds great in theory, but I could not for the life of me "self thread" these needles without breaking the thread. Perhaps inferior quality had something to do with that difficulty, but since these were not the object of my purchase (and are still otherwise usable), I'm not bothered by it.
The main features that differentiate one needle from the next are length, eye size and type of point. It bears mentioning that different substrates require needles with different points in order to maintain the integrity of the material. For example, we use ballpoint needles when sewing with knits so as not to cut or tear them.
As seen in this description from a PDF resource courtesy of jjneedles.com, I likely would have benefited from having a needle point that could penetrate the tough plastic edge of that storage bag.
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| image courtesy of jjneedles.com... |
Did you know that in rather perverse fashion, the number assigned as the "size" of a hand needle is inverse to its actual dimensions? The length and girth of a hand sewing needle decreases as the size increases; i.e., a size 1 needle is bigger and longer than a size 12.
For an excellent summary of hand needle types and uses, check out the Hand Sewing Needle Guide put out by the Sewing and Craft Alliance. (It's widely available from different sources online.)
Have you performed any unusual sewing repair jobs? Lemme know in a comment.
'Til next...
I have a few of those assorted type needles packages too. But mostly I have needles for a particular job such as embroidery needles. I have never been able to thread a so-called self threading needle either! Thread breaks for me too and I tried all kinds of thread. Either there is some trick to threading those we don't know about or they are a gimmick that really doesn't work. I think some of those tough jobs just call for using Super Glue instead of sewing, lol!
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! I have PACKS of needles that I got from my grandmother 40 or more years ago.😱 (The packs of household needles are marked 5 cents each!) Definitely a necessity in my household, although many things seem less "repairable" these days. (I had to glue my vintage Tevas for one more year of wear, lol.)
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to see mending coming back creatively, as well as a way to defer buying ready to wear (RTW).
I'm wondering if you have any experience with sewing awls for repairing/sewing leather? (Such as the Speedy Stitcher.)
I've seen that Speedy Stitcher — Sew4Home has a post about it from August 2018 — and certainly think it's nifty, but have not come across a need to use/have one.
DeleteIt's unfortunate that as we become more aware of the advantages of repairing our things, they have become perversely less repairable. While I didn't think to glue that piece onto hubby's sandals, like you, I have glued my own sandals successfully.
I wonder if your grandmother had an inkling of how expensive sewing supplies might become in future years?
The self threading needles are one of my favourite things! I do quite a bit of quilting now, especially with this pandemic and the desire to reduce some of my stash of fabrics. I like the tradition of burying the thread ends and I was using a standard hand sewing needle, threading the two ends through the eye of the needle, and then hiding the ends between the layers of quilt. Then one of my friends showed me the self threading needles! She just "popped" the two threads into the end of the needle and it was threaded, like magic. I usually buy the brand my favourite quilting shop sells, and I use Aurifil thread for quilting (very fine and smooth). I have never tried them for hand sewing but they are indispensable for quilting!
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that people can actually get those self-threading needles to work! (Perhaps it does depend on needle quality and/or a stronger thread.) Thanks for giving them a thumbs up in your experience.
DeleteI've watched a few videos on quilting techniques during this spell and have been educated about the ways to bury thread ends. I knew how to pull the top thread through and tie off the ends in the back, but was it was instructive to see that the whole knot can be yanked underneath when sewing by hand.