You can make your fabric or cloth beautiful by doing hand embroidery. By this you can make almost everything beautiful right from a small handkerchief to your big bedsheet. But, what is the most essential tool in hand embroidery?
The most essential tool in hand embroidery is a needle. Hand embroidery needles come in different types, sizes and shapes. It can be confusing to understand which to use. So, it is important to have all the knowledge on hand embroidery needles.
So, in this post, I will give you details of the needle used in hand embroidery, its parts, types, etc.
WHAT IS THE MOST ESSENTIAL TOOL IN HAND EMBROIDERY?
The most essential tool in hand embroidery is the needle. Without needle hand embroidery is not possible.
Hand Embroidery Needles come in lots of different sizes and shapes. It can be confusing which one to use. For this you need a basic understanding of the Hand Embroidery needles. Because, certain needles achieve different results.
PARTS OF HAND EMBROIDERY NEEDLE
Hand Embroidery Needle has 3 parts. The parts are listed below.
- Eye
- Shaft
- Point
Eye
Eye is the part of the needle through which you put the thread for embroidery work. It is present in the top most portion of the needle. This part is flattened with holes in between.
Hand Embroidery need;le have longer eye than needle used in plain stitching. This make them easier to thread.
Shaft
Shaft is the part between the eye and the point. It is cylindrical in shape. Most portion of the needle is covered by the Shaft.
Point
Point is the sharp end of the needle. It is pointed so it pierce through your fabric. You will find some needle points are flattened and some are cylindrically pointed. Some of the points may be blunt
TYPES OF HAND EMBROIDERY NEEDLE
There are 7 types of hand embroidery needle. Each needle has different purpose. So, the shape and structure is slightly different from each other.
The 7 types of hand embroidery needle are
- Crewel Needle or Embroidery needle
- Tapestry Needle
- Chenille Needle
- Milliner Needles or Straw Needles
- Sharp Needle
- Between Needle
- Beading Needle
Crewel Needle / Embroidery Needle
Crewel Needle is the most common hand embroidery needle you are going to need. Crewel needle are also called embroidery needle.
Crewel Needle have sharp points and slightly elongated eyes. They are almost similar to regular stitching needles except for its elongated eye.
The long eye of the crewel needle or embroidery needle helps in inserting and accommodating embroidery threads easily. The sharp tip of the crewel needle helps to pierce the tightly woven fabrics more easily.
They’re used for crewel work and most surface embroidery where piercing through the fabric threads are necessary to the stitching.
Tapestry Needle
Tapestry needles have long eyes and blunt points. They’re used for counted work, drawn thread work, canvas work, or other types of needlework in which the point of the needle is not meant to pierce the fabric threads.
Tapestry needle is very useful as an embroidery tool for wools, matty and open weave fabrics. It avoids splitting the threads of the fabric. The needle rounded point slips between the fabrics rather than through them.The blunt tip of the needle helps us avoid snagging the foundation stitches.
Tapestry needle has shorter shaft than crewel needle but longer eyes. Due to the open holes in the weave of the fabric, even the blunt tip can pierce through it easily.
It is the most appropriate tool for any type of stitch that involves lacing for surface embroidery. You can buy them from local market. Tapestry needle comes in sizes from 13 to 28. 13 being the largest and 28 being the smallest and very fine.
Chenille Needle
Chenille needles have a long eye like the eye on tapestry needles, but a sharp point, and can be used effectively in crewel work and ribbon embroideries, or any surface work where a longer eye and a sharp point is desired.
Chenille needle is perfect for stem stitches, lazy-daisy stitches, straight stitches, mirror work. You can use chenille needle for tacking couched threads to the back of fabric.
Milliner Needles/ Straw Needles
Straw or milliner needles have an eye and shaft that are equal in thickness, which makes them ideal for French knots and bullion knots, or any stitch where the needle must pass through multiple wraps of thread.
It has a long shaft and sharp tip with a shorter and round eye. The eye and shaft on a milline needle are of the same size. This makes these needle best for working any wrapped stitches like french knots, bullion knots, etc
You can also create pleating and fancy stitches. The wrap stitches by this needle come looking neat and clean. Moreover, it is very easy to work with this needle.
Sharp Needle
Sharp Needle is a sewing needle but it can be used as a hand embroidery tool. It has small eye and long shaft. This needle has sharp point.
The size of sharp needle is usually 3 to 4 cm. It is also known as applique needle.
Between Needle
Between needle is a sharp needle with a shorter shaft. This needle is used for hand quilting and sometime for hand embroidery. Due to shorter shaft, these needle does not bend and is usually strong.
Beading Needle
Beading needle is used for stitching beads to fabric in hand embroidery. It is long, very fine needle with a tiny eye. Beading needle is one of the most essential tools for hand embroidery. Because without a beading beading needle you cannot attach beads to the fabric.
SIZES OF HAND EMBROIDERY NEEDLE
Hand embroidery needles are available in different thickness, length, size of eye, sharpness and size of point. The size of the needle is indicated by the number. Higher the number finer the needle and lower the number larger is the needle. But different brands of needle sometime have different number on them
Most hand embroidery needles are available in assortment packages. The package of assorted sizes come in 1-5, 3-9 and 5-10, etc. The selection of size of hand embroidery needle is to be done based on a few factors. They are
- Weight or Thickness of the Fabric
- The required fineness of the embroidery
- The kind of thread to be used.
OTHER TYPE OF HAND EMBROIDERY TOOLS
Needle being the most essential embroidery tool. There are other embroidery tools you require. Some of the essential ones are listed below.
- Embroidery Hoop or Frame
- Needle Threader
- Seam Ripper
- Thimble
- Ruler
- Scissors for hand embroidery
CONCLUSION
So, the most essential tool without which hand embroidery is not possible is the needle. Hand embroidery needles come in different sizes, types, etc. Each hand embroidery needle has different purposes in your embroidery work. This post has covered them all one by one.