Needles Needles and More Needles

I am posting this on both of my blogs as I’m not sure if everyone that follows one, knows about the other.

It’s the time of year where we all need to do some maintenance on our sewing machines before we get busy with all our holiday sewing projects. For the month of September, Colleen is doing her Freebie Fridays based on basic sewing. The first article is about simple machine maintenance, including how to video’s she’s found along the way. Follow Colleen on Freebie Fridays all this month and catch up on your basic sewing skills.

During the time earlier this year, when I was enthused and on track with the TAST challenge over at Pin Tangle,  I was reading up on the stitch for week 16 (back in April when I thought I was invincible and could keep up.

Can’t do it   

In this post, Sharon made reference to the importance of using the right needles for the right job and included a picture of needles that she obviously uses.  Far be it for me, to ignore the opportunity to find out about a brand of needles I hadn’t heard of.

Off I went on a mission to search out these new needles and there I found this wonderful site. Anita’s Little Stitches. On Anita’s site she has a category listed in the right hand column specifically for Bohin products. These needles are from France and the curious cat in me just had to know the difference.  There is a minimum of $20 you have to order, but it takes no time to add a variety of products to the cart and you have your $20. The shipping is also very reasonable and being in Canada, ordering from the US, I watch sites and compare shipping very closely. Anita is very quick at processing orders and has been wonderful to work with on a special order, details further down.

I initially ordered some needlework needles to try out and see how I liked them and after my first order I was sold.

I now have, along with a variety of needles for hand sewing  including, milliners, crewel and  beading, needles for machine sewing both stretch and regular (in two sizes) as well as quilting and patchwork, curved and bulk needles for hand sewing different size weaves of fabric. 

The first thing about the sewing machine needles that was to me, the most important, were NO skipped stitches. Even with changing needles almost with every new project, there were still fabrics that my regular needles just wouldn’t sew without skipping. These Bodin needles did not skip. I know nothing about the manufacturing of these needles and profess no knowledge beyond how beautifully they work.

The special order I mentioned earlier, are needles specific to doll making. I found the Bohin site online and downloaded their catalogue. In there I found doll making needles and of course I had to have them. Anita was very quick to check with her sales rep. and discovered that indeed there are more than one type of darner.

I explained to her that doll makers use Long Darners for sculpting cloth dolls, she checked and sure enough found them for me. Along with those, she has also now brought in the 3 pack of long needles doll makers use for joining doll parts together.

Anita is  very accommodating and willing to search out special requests. I was waiting for the doll making needles to arrive and they have, so I really want to give you a heads up to these wonderful needles and a great site to shop at. There are a ton of things to see on Anita’s Little Stitches, do stop by and take a look and if there is something on your wish list, ask her if she can get it for you and I know she will do her best to help. Happy stitches.