A sewing needle is a long slender tool with a pointed tip. The first needles were made of bone or wood; modern ones are manufactured from high carbon steel wire, nickel- or 18K gold plated for corrosion resistance. The highest quality embroidery needles are plated with two-thirds platinum and one-thirds titanium alloy. Traditionally, needles have been kept in needle books or needle cases which have become an object of adornment. Sewing needles can also be kept in an etui, a small box that held needles and other items such as scissors, pencils and tweezers.
A needle for hand sewing has a hole, called the eye at the blunt end to carry thread or cord through the fabric after the pointed end pierces it.
Read more about Sewing Needle: Types of Hand Sewing Needles, Needles in Archaeology
Famous quotes containing the words sewing and/or needle:
“...there are important considerations in the world beyond plain sewing and teaching dull little boys the alphabet. Any woman who has brains and willing hands finds twenty remunerative occupations open to her where formerly she would have found merely the inevitable two—plain sewing, or the dull little boys. All she had to do is to make her choice and then buckle on her armor of perseverance, while the world applauds.”
—Clara (Marquise)
“I believe no gentleman would like to have his family affairs neglected because his wife was filling her head with crotchets and pothooks, and who, because she understood a few scraps of Latin, valued that more than minding her needle or providing her husband’s dinner.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)