Needle threaders

A needle threader – a thin wire loop on a small handle – costs almost nothing and ends the squinting: push the wire loop through the eye, pass the thread through the wire, pull back. Keep two; they are fragile. A drop of saliva on the eye (not the thread) also helps, as does cutting the thread at a slant with sharp scissors, and holding the needle against something white.

Storage and rust

Needles and pins are steel, and steel rusts in humid air – a real issue through an Indian monsoon. Keep them dry: in their original packet, a needle book (felt pages in a folded cover – another good first project), or a small tin with a strip of chalk or a few grains of dry rice to take up moisture. A rusty or rough needle stains and snags cloth; rub a doubtful one through a pincushion filled with sand or steel wool, and discard it if it stays rough. Never leave pins in a garment between sessions on damp days; they can leave rust marks that never wash out.

When to replace a needle

Needles are cheap; cloth and patience are not. Replace a needle when it is bent, rusty, rough (it “whispers” or squeaks going through cloth), or blunt – a blunt needle pushes threads aside and makes you work hard. Hand needles last a long time, but “this needle fights me” is always a reason to change it.

Safe disposal: the needle tin

Broken and discarded needles and pins must never go loose into a dustbin, where they find a hand or a bare foot – a child’s, a waste-picker’s, your own. Keep a small screw-top tin or sturdy bottle (an old balm tin, a tablet bottle) in your kit as the needle tin. Every broken needle, bent pin and dead machine needle goes in. When it is full after some years, tape it shut and put the sealed tin in the bin. Make this a rule in any home with children.

• Buy assorted packets first, one of sharps and one of embroidery needles. You will learn your favourite sizes by use, not by guessing in the shop.
• Thread several needles at once before starting a long job, and park them in the pincushion. Rhythm beats re-threading.
• Cut thread at a slant with sharp scissors before threading – a clean angled tip goes through the eye first time.
• Hold the needle against white paper or cloth when threading; the eye shows clearly against white.
• Count your pins out and count them in when working on a garment, especially children’s wear. The count is the only proof none is left inside.
• A strip of magnet by the machine or table catches pins as you pull them out – faster and safer than reaching for the cushion each time.
• Run a sticky lint roller or a magnet over the floor after every session. It finds the pin your foot would have found.
• Never sew over pins on the machine (when you get there): place pins at right angles to the seam and pull each one out as it approaches the needle.
• Mark your finest needles with a dot of nail polish on the packet, so you can find “the silk needle” instantly.
• Use the tapestry needle for nada and elastic: its blunt tip sails through a casing without piercing the cloth. A safety pin works too, but the needle is smoother.
• Keep a needle book in your travel kit – two needles, a few pins, a small reel – and you can repair anything anywhere.
• Old, loved needles get smooth with use; if a new needle feels sticky, polish it through a pincushion a few times before blaming your hands.

The thread keeps shredding or breaking at the eye.

1. The eye is too small or has a rough spot. Change to a bigger eye (an embroidery needle of the same size) and the shredding usually stops.
2. Check the eye: pull a scrap of thread back and forth through it. If it catches, discard the needle – a burr in the eye never heals.
3. Prevention: match eye to thread when you start, and buy decent needles; the very cheapest packets have rough eyes.

I can’t get the thread through the eye at all.

1. Cut the thread freshly at a slant and stiffen the tip with a touch of saliva or beeswax; hold the needle against something white.
2. Use a needle threader, or switch to an embroidery needle with its long eye.
3. Prevention: good light, reading glasses if you need them, and never try to thread a frayed, fuzzy end.

The needle is hard to push through the cloth.

1. The needle is too thick, blunt, or the cloth too dense. Try one size finer and see if it slides.
2. For genuinely heavy cloth, use a sturdier needle and push with a thimble on your middle finger instead of forcing with bare skin.
3. Prevention: test needle and cloth on a scrap before starting, and retire blunt needles.

The needle leaves visible holes in the cloth.

1. Too thick a needle for a fine cloth. Change to a fine sharp (size 9–11) and the holes close up.
2. Scratch-test: gently scrape existing holes with a fingernail across the weave; on most woven cloth they close.
3. Prevention: fine cloth, fine needle, always – and pin inside the seam allowance, where holes will never show.

Needles and pins are rusting in the box.

1. Discard anything already rusted; rust marks cloth permanently.
2. Move the survivors to a dry tin with a piece of chalk or a few grains of dry rice, away from the bathroom wall and the window.
3. Prevention: never store needles in damp rooms, never leave pins sitting in cloth through the monsoon, and dry your hands before putting tools away.

Pins keep bending or snagging the cloth.

1. Bent and burred pins go straight into the needle tin – one snag on fine cloth costs more than a new box of pins.
2. Buy steel dressmaker’s pins of reasonable quality; the loosest street packets bend on first use.
3. Prevention: pin through two layers of cloth only, not through six layers and the table mat, and store pins dry.

A needle or pin has gone missing mid-work.

1. Stop. Run a magnet (or the magnetic tray) over the work area, your lap, and the floor around the chair.
2. Shake out the garment and check it seam by seam before anyone wears it; count your pins against the number you started with.
3. Prevention: work from a counted set of pins, keep the pincushion in reach so pins never sit loose, and never, ever hold pins in your mouth.

The needle keeps slipping out of my fingers.

1. Sweaty or smooth fingertips are usual in our climate. Wash and dry hands, and grip the needle closer to the eye.
2. Use a thimble, or a small balloon of rubber (a finger cut from an old rubber glove) on the pulling finger for grip.
3. Prevention: shorter needles (betweens) are easier to control; and a moment of hand-drying before sewing becomes habit quickly.

Mistakes

• Holding pins in the mouth. One cough, one startle, and a pin is swallowed or inhaled. It is the oldest tailor’s habit and the worst one; never copy it.
• Using one needle for everything, forever, long after it is blunt and rough.
• Throwing broken needles loose into the dustbin instead of the needle tin.
• Buying the cheapest possible packet and concluding that “sewing is hard” when the real problem is a rough eye and a blunt point.
• Pinning outside the seam allowance on cloth that marks, so every pin hole shows on the finished garment.

Myths

• “A bigger needle is easier for beginners.” Only on thick cloth. On ordinary cloth a big needle is harder to push and leaves holes; the middle sizes are easiest.
• “Needle size doesn’t matter.” It is half the feel of hand sewing. The same stitch with the right needle feels like a different craft.
• “Good sewists never drop pins.” Everyone drops pins. Good sewists own a magnet.

1. The threading drill: thread a sharp, an embroidery needle and a darning needle five times each, cutting the thread fresh each time. Time yourself on the first and last round.
2. The matching drill: take three cloths (fine, medium, heavy) and find, by testing on scraps, the needle from your packet that suits each. Label the scraps and keep them.
3. The pin drill: pin two layers of cloth along a drawn line with pins at right angles, evenly spaced, in under two minutes – then count every pin back out.
4. The kit drill: set up your needle book, pincushion and needle tin, and put every needle and pin you own into its right home.

As a hobby: a small, well-kept needle collection is a quiet pleasure – the right needle found first time, every time. Pincushions and needle books also make lovely quick gifts, and you will sew both later in this course.

For earning: professionals are known by their tool habits. A worker whose needles are sorted, rust-free and matched to the job works faster, spoils nothing, and looks trustworthy to a customer watching. The needle tin and the pin count are non-negotiable in any paid work on customers’ garments.

For teaching: start every beginner class with the needle types laid out and handled, and teach the threading tricks before the first stitch – threading is where beginners quietly give up. Make the no-pins-in-the-mouth rule and the needle tin part of lesson one, and they become lifelong habits.

• Dry tools, dry box: needles and pins live in a dry tin or needle book, with chalk or rice against the monsoon.
• Retire without regret: bent, blunt, rusty or rough – into the needle tin, not back into the cushion.
• The tin is sacred: every sharp discard goes into the sealed tin, and the full tin is taped shut before it is binned.
• Once a season, tip out the needle book, wipe everything with a dry cloth, and re-sort by type and size.

• Can you name the five needle types and one use for each?
• Do you know which way the size numbers run for hand needles?
• Can you choose a needle for fine voile and another for denim, and say why?
• Is there a needle tin in your kit right now?
• Can you thread a needle three ways (slant cut, against white, threader)?
• Do you count pins in and out of every job?

If all six are yes, your needles will never be the reason a stitch goes wrong.

• Sharps: the all-purpose hand needle.
• Betweens: short needles for fine, quick stitches.
• Embroidery (crewel) needle: sharp needle with a long eye.
• Tapestry needle: blunt needle with a big eye, for open weaves and casings.
• Eye: the hole in the needle the thread passes through.
• Burr: a rough spot on metal that shreds thread or snags cloth.
• Thimble: a metal or rubber cap worn on the finger that pushes the needle.
• Needle tin: the sealed container for broken and discarded sharps.
• Seam allowance: the strip of cloth between the stitching line and the raw edge.