Sewing needles

[sewmuchmore]

I have just been ordering some new hand sewing needles (come on, own up how often do you replace yours?) and thought
this guide might be useful to some of you.

[BrendaP]

Thank you.  It's the first time I've seen needle diameters listed, though the diameters of pins is usually quoted as well as the lengths.

[Surest1tch]

I haven't bought any for absolutely years but in my defence I did buy a huge quantity from a wholesaler.

[UttaRetch]

I replace mine as soon as they get: bent; blunt; or rusty.  However, I do have a smart set of Merchant & Mills needles.

[sewingj]

Someone told me about this guide last year - on page 3 there is a code to get 25% off

[wrenkins]

That's a great link @sewmuchmore. My needles rust because I am a very sweaty Betty. I used gold plated embroidery needles otherwise my work got ruined. 

[Efemera]

Can’t think when I bought needles...they just seem to have always been there.

[Kwaaked]

Haha.  I buy them wholesale in February of each year.

As to replacing them, if I am working on wedding dresses when they get bent or each gown....everything else about every 3 days.

But nice chart, thanks!

[Mr Twingo]

That's a great guide.

My needles are replaced when they break, or when I lose them. John James glover's needles – the ones I use for leather work – are superb quality and remain sharp for ages. Eventually they develop a noticeable bend, but I continue using the bent ones as they have conformed to the way I stitch.

Buying direct from John James was so much cheaper than buying elsewhere.

[Iminei]

Thank you for that @sewmuchmore  ... I avoid handsewing like the plague as I can barely see the needle let alone the eye ... 

as such the easy threading needles are the ones I use the most ... for burying my quilting threads ...

When they go awol, I generally have a quick scout around but its usually a hopeless case as the parquet (old and 'rustic' rather than posh and glossy) has usually swallowed them up !!!

Which reminds me I need to buy some new to replenish my new needlecase!

[Esme866]

Treated myself to Tulip needles last year. They are wonderful and the little glass tube they come in make them seem that much more special.

I actually enjoy the relaxed pace of hand stitching - provided I haven't procrastinated and forced myself to put in a hem when I should be walking out the door!

[Kwaaked]

@Mr Twingo I order direct, as well.  Even with the $20 shipping, I still wind up paying half price for them as I would here in the US, and I usually order beading needles or upholstery tools, depending on what I need at the time and what my DH ran off with.

You would think 1000 needles would be a lot and you'd never need more...but Covid hit before I actually ordered any, I was down to my last 50 or so.  Since the lockdown, I have lost 10 of them, 8 have been pushed into my chair, I've bent 20, blunted 6 and have a scant few left in my etui.

@Esme866 I hate hand sewing, unfortunately I am good at it.  And I keep up the practice of it...as my use of needles show.  This is what I use to gauge my skill (thanks to my great grandmother and grandmother...this was always the chart to achieve and I have done so, but you still have to keep at it to keep the time up):
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[Esme866]

@Kwaaked  - Someone else with insomnia perhaps?

Interesting chart. I downloaded it for future reference.

I don't ever see myself making an entire garment by hand, but when I need to knock something out quickly I can. As you sew so much more than I do, I'm sure your speed and uniformity would top mine with no problem.

I've read posts on other forums where people have come back to sewing after years away and complained of how awkward a needle felt in their hands. Mom started me sewing so young that I have no memory of not being able to. No matter how long between projects, picking up a needle and thread always feels as comfortable as an old friend.

Now if I only had a glass of wine.......I REALLY want to be up by 9:00.

[Renegade Sewist]

That's a great guide.

My needles are replaced when they break, or when I lose them. John James glover's needles – the ones I use for leather work – are superb quality and remain sharp for ages. Eventually they develop a noticeable bend, but I continue using the bent ones as they have conformed to the way I stitch.

Buying direct from John James was so much cheaper than buying elsewhere.

When I read the chart I wanted to immediately get some glovers needles. Your endorsement of these is appreciated. Just prior to lock down I discovered we still have a leather supplier in town. I thought Tandy leather had gone out of business years ago. I spent a few hours perusing what was available. They are so incredibly overpriced except during a sale. I haven't worked with leather in probably 30 years but it's been calling to me of late.

[Kwaaked]

Mine is anxiety more then anything, to be honest.

I always wanted to sew by machine, my mom was one that to learn to sew you have to do it by hand only and it turned me off of it for a long time because I couldn't do it fast and I didn't know how.  When we moved to Texas from Oklahoma, hand sewing was a way for my great grandmother to get to know me and spend time with me (and she was actually quite talented at hand sewing, far more then machining) and my grandmother was a tailor.  I learned to actually hand sew through the Women's Institute of Domestic Arts and Science course (both of them had copies of it...Great g-ma the 1918 version, Gma the 40s) with my great grandma when I was 10 over about a year, and the chart you see if from an old book (they had several versions of this) and was like, THIS is what you need to work to get to speed.  Machine, hand...here's the times, work to them. 

It didn't hurt that they used my perfectionism and having a natural talent at it to help me get good.  The chart was actually a great motivator...the first things I hand sewn were horrid on times (an apron took me 10 hours, and drawers took about 12).  I didn't actually hit those times until I was in my 30s, and I don't always hit them now; a plain apron takes me 2h12m on average...but it's not always "plain" in the 1866 sense of the garment (which is when this chart was published).

By the time I was 12, I made extra money hand sewing hems for men's suit pants for my grandmother (my great grandmother died shortly after my 13th birthday).  Not much, and certainly not what she got paid for it, but a couple bucks.  Last thing I did with her before she got cancer was pad stitching a men's coat for tailoring...she died before I got good at any real form of sewing.

I make at least one garment a year by hand completely, on purpose.  And not aprons or lingerie (I make aprons by hand to ignore my in laws when I have to go and fine lingerie often works out with better control by hand and often make a dozen or so a year of them) but something like a shirt or dress.  It just reinforces what I know.  And to be honest, you can always find a needle and thread but a machine may not always be around. 

I also get into weird tangents.  I made a dress of deer skin out of bone needles and sinew to mimic the c. 700 leather dress found in a burial tomb and one of my ex husbands made me a set of iron needles that have no real use in modern sewing, but I occasionally use them for the sheer fun of it.