Needles

After reading Sarai's post on developing good sewing habits, and reading about needles in the Colette Sewing Handbook I thought it was about time to change my needle and think about which one I should be using for which fabric.  I opened up the messy box containing all my needles, lots of ribbon and thread, and tailor's chalk - yes it's very messy! - and found a huge selection of needles. I've now thrown away the one in the machine that had been there for, well I don't know how long but I've never changed it, and I've put in one for the light cotton fabric you can see in the background of the photo. This fabric is in the process of becoming a pair of PJ shorts - the legs are sewn up, an it's a rainy day today so I'm hoping I'll get them finished today.

 
When I was deciding what, out of my mum's room-full of sewing, embroidery and other art supplies I should keep, it was hard to know what I might use in the future.  There were lots of things I had sentimental attachments to that I couldn't get rid of, but as a non-sewer I found it hard to know what would be most useful.  In the end I gave most of the craft supplies to friends of hers and of mine, people that I knew would get lots of use out of them.  I kept the sewing machine, all the machine threads, needles, scissors and a selection of fabric as I just couldn't keep it all.  It's lovely as I still get surprises when I go through boxes - for example just after taking the photo above I found another little needle box containing 3 twin needles!  Another discovery this week is that my sewing machine has a light bulb! I can't find the little gadget that my instruction book says should be there to remove the bulb and put in a new one - maybe it was one of the things I got rid of as I didn't know what it was! It's going to come in really useful in the winter though to be able to add some extra light to my wee sewing table.