Needles

Needles

Sharps

Sewing needles also called sharps are general and multipurpose hand sewing needles with small, rounded threading eye just large enough to hold thread and a sharp pointed tip at the other end.

These versatile hand sewing needles are made from carbon steel wires and sizes range from 1 to 12. These needles are also available in tinted two colors golden head and silver tip which makes it easier to find when dropped.

Embroidery Needles

In contrast to sharps embroidery needles have a long oval eye to accommodate multiple strands of thread or thicker yarns. They have sharp tip as they are primarily used for embroidery work, which helps to pierce tightly woven fabrics. Available sizes range from 1 to 12 and is very important to use the needles that suits the weight of the fabric.

Chenille Needles

Chenille needles are nickel plated steel needles that have a long oval eye and a sharp point. Sizes range from 14 to 26. These needles are used for heavier threads and for fabrics such as canvas, Lenin, denim etc. They are also widely used in crewel (using wool) embroidery and ribbon embroidery.

 Tapestry Needles

Tapestry needles are heavy needles with blunt ends. They have a large oval eye so that it can fit the heaviest yarns. Both metal and plastic versions are available in the market. The tips can be straight or bent and the popular sizes range from 16 to 22. The larger the number smaller the needles.

They are mainly used for needlepoint (stitching on canvas mesh) and tapestry work. As the blunt end does not split the yarn it is also used in knitting and crochet work.

Curved Needles

    

The curved shape of these needles easily allows them to sew the angles where a straight needle would be difficult. The sizes range from 4cm to 8cm.

They are mainly used in slip stitching that is hand sewing upholstery fabrics, fabric box edges, lampshades etc.

Beading Needle

Beading needles are thin, long, flexible, sharp needles. The sizes range from 10 to 15 and the needles with the larger number are finer. A number of varieties of beading needle are available which include Bigeye, English, Japanese, Curved and so on.

Choose a needle size based on type and size of the bead and thread and also the number of passes made through the bead. Big eye needles have large eye and are very easy to thread. They are widely used for decorative beading and sequin work.

Self- Threading Needles

The Self-Threading needles are similar to sharps, but the thread is directly pulled into a slot (tiny opening) rather than passing it through an eye. This makes threading very easy to carry out fine manual sewing. The needle sizes range from 4-8

Darners

The Darners are long eyed hand-sewing needles primarily used for Darning (Darning is a method of reweaving the threads to repair the hole in a garment and is done either by hand or sewing machine).

Short darners (sizes 5/0-9) are used for darning with cotton or wool.

Long darners (sizes 4/0-9) are able to span larger holes and also ideal for basting and layering of fabrics especially during quilting.

Yarn darners are heavy and long hence are designed for darning with yarn.