A selection of sewing accessories including heart shaped scissors and a fish shaped needleminder

Sewing Notions | Needlepoint

Welcome back to NeedlePoints of View, a monthly column brought to you by Emma of The Maker’s Marks and Hannelore of Hedgehog Needlepoint, where we’ll be sharing our love of all things needlepoint. Whether you’re new to the craft and want to learn what it’s all about or you’ve already fallen under needlepoint’s spell, we hope to inspire you to pick up a needle and get stitching.

Sewing Notions

Looking to up your stitching game this year? One of the best ways to start is to equip yourself with crafty gadgets to make your life easier. 

I am an absolute sucker for stitching accessories, with multiple needle minders and embroidery scissors in amongst my stash. 

So what cute crafting notions are there out there?, let’s investigate! 

A selection of sewing accessories including heart shaped embroidery scissors and a fortune teller fish shaped magnetic needle minder sit on top of some needlepoint canvas.

Embroidery scissors 

Long gone are the days of brass stork scissors being the only fancy choice in the haberdashery department, because as well as them getting a super colourful makeover, there are a lot of shapes and styles out there now.

Embroidery scissors are an absolute must in any needlepointer’s life, and multiple pairs are preferable if like me you put them down and constantly lose track of them! 

Smaller than your regular craft scissors, embroidery scissors are much easier to manoeuvre and their sharp blades will help you to trim your threads neatly. 

Four pairs of colourful embroidery scissors sit on top of a wooden background.

Needle minders

My friend Genevieve first introduced me to needle minders and I am now obsessed. I’m not entirely sure how I survived without them! 

A needle minder is a type of badge, generally metal, wood or plastic with a magnet underneath instead of a pin. You take the top ‘badge’ section and place it on the top side of your project, then pop the magnet underneath, essentially sandwiching the canvas in between, giving you a place to keep your needle safe between stitching sessions. So, no more weaving needles into the canvas for safe keeping, or losing them down the sofa! 

They come in so many wonderful designs that are very collectible.

Four magnetic and enamel needle minders are sandwiched on some needlepoint canvas.

Project Pouches

If you’re working on a bigger project it’ll most likely come in a bag or tube that makes it easy to pop back in when you’re not working on it. But what to do with those smaller projects so you don’t lose track of all your threads? Let me introduce you to the project pouch.

These neat little bags are the perfect thing to scoop your stitching bits and bobs away into, perfect if you like to get WIP’s on your commute.

Two project pouches sit on top of a wooden background. One pouch says Sewing Is My Superpower.

Bobbins & Thread organisers

With a lot of needlepoint worked in wools it can be tricky to find a neat way of keeping your thread lengths tidy once you’ve opened your skein. I have as couple of go to items that are my best friends in this situation! 

This wooden thread organiser from Thread & Mercury is amazing. With large eyelets you can get a big chunk of wool through each one and your whole project in order.

A wooden thread organiser is filled with a rainbow of tapestry wool.

Standard bobbins can’t take the thickness of tapestry wool but these acrylic bobbins certainly can. Each one holds a full 10m skein. You can easily pop a little labelling sticker on each one to record your colour reference and dye lot number.

A selection of acrylic needle minders shaped like sweets.

If you’d liked to know about more sewing notions and how to get your project started, along with learning a ton of needlepoint stitches you might like my book Needlepoint: A Modern Stitch Directory

A book cover shows the craft book Needlepoint a Modern Stitch Directory

Next month join us as we introduce shiny new columnist Hannelore from Hedgehog Needlepoint.

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