Needles and Pins

So, would you like to see what I bought in Sanjo-Honke Misuyabari?

© Carol-Anne Conway

It may not look like much but to me it is a precious haul. The first thing on my shopping list was some handmade Japanese needles. The needles are so precious that each one is individually wrapped. The proprietor wrote the needle sizes on the front of each packet.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And on the reverse he wrote their names.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Inside each paper packet the needles are kept safe within a little foil package.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And here they are, my beautiful hand made needles purchased in Japan, from left to right oo-buto (#10), ai-chuu (#8) and kiritsuke (#5).

© Carol-Anne Conway

The needles purchase from the fishing shop were slightly less lovingly packaged. I imagine that the outer wrapper gives the name of the shop as well as the telephone and fax numbers. The needles were wrapped in a second piece of paper something like gress proof paper.

© Carol-Anne Conway

Inside that the needles are threaded into a piece of the same paper. I have no record of their sizes and cannot remember exactly what they are but I believe that they are #11, #9 and #7.

© Carol-Anne Conway

And here, for comparison, are a some of my JEC needles (far left), the Misuyabari needles and the fishing shop needles. We are told that there is only one needle maker left in Japan. The JEC and Misuyabari are so a like that they are most likely to be from the same manufacturer but the fishing shop needles are distinctly different and I suspect that they come from a different manufacture. They do not appear to be of the same quality. I have not used either the Misuyabari nor the fishing shop needles yet.

© Carol-Anne Conway

I also purchased this pack of pins. They are not hand made but these are useful when beading.

© Carol-Anne Conway

The other item on my shopping list was a tekobari. I already have two but again but, hey!

© Carol-Anne Conway

Happy stitching