Needles

Hello, everyone.

As y'all know, I've been up to the neck in finishing off a big dress. Part of that is, this time, hand stitching on the hem. It's poly doupioni backed with poly organza: slick. But once you finally get it pinned in place it's reasonably compliant. I used a (LONG) strip of bias organza to cover the fabric edge at the hem and hand stitched the fold of the organza down for the hem. Used poly machine-embroidery thread for this, as it's a really good match in color and sheen for the dress fabric. And got a knot in the thread that was impossible to get out.

Hemming in process--had to take breaks.

The knot was too close to the fabric for me to cut the thread and rethread the good part to knot it off. At least with that needle, which was probably 2 inches long. (5 cm for our metric cousins) I decided to look in the package of spiffy French needles I'd picked up along the way.

My package of lovely needles--the betweens are covered by the left edge of the packet.

There on the outside end was a short little thing, a Big Eye Between, which was just perfect. The length was about 1.25 inch or so. I was able to end off the thread, cut the knot out of the remaining portion, and use most of the remaining portion. I used the between needle to finish off the hem. It was a dream to work with, having a sharp point along with the easy-threading big eye.

This was one time that the stash came in handy. I'd bought the needles as part of a gift certificate from Amazon, just to see what they're like. Ms. Corbet at Needle n Thread has written a lot about needles and this is one of the brands she's fond of. I can see why.