Testing New To Me Hand Needles

These Lori Holt Binding Needles were purchased almost a year ago at the Nimble Thimbles Quilt show in Franklin, Indiana. Somehow the cute little needles were shoved in my notions drawer and forgotten.

Leave it to Lori to make a needle cute.  They have pink paint on the top of each needle.  The pink means it's a binding needle. She has needles with different color paint for different uses.  Some reviews say the paint makes them easier to thread. We'll see about that shortly.

In my last blog post I found a few quilts needing labels.  This is the perfect time to give these needles a test run.  

First lets compare them to my go needles, Bohin.  I've been using this brand for a couple of years.  They were part of a Fat Quarter Shop Sew Sampler  subscription box.  

I was skeptical because I've used many brands over the years but always went back to John James needles due to they glide smoothy through the fabric.  Cheap needles are not as polished and don't glide well.  Cheap needles also bend easily.

Not only do the Bohin seem stronger than John James. I also like the booklet style packaging.  The booklet makes it easier to remove the needle and it has each needle label by size and suggested uses.

As for the packaging of Lori's Nifty Needles, it gets two thumbs down.  What pain in my keester to find the right needle and put them back in the little container.

But after doing some research I found that she also sells a variety pack of needles.  

And it's pretty cute! I could frame this little work of art!

Back to the test.  I grabbed my favorite Bohin needle and tried to find a Lori needle that was the same size.  This was the best I could do.  

The eyes are very different.  All of the Lori needles have shorter eyes.  The eye also looks a tad wider.  Maybe its an optical illusion?

Was it easier to thread?  It took four tries to thread the needle the first time.  That's pretty normal for my old eyes.

As I sewed labels to four quilts and had to rethread again and again, it was about the same as any other needle.  Try and try again....

A couple times I had to resort to using my favorite needle threader, The Hummingbird.  In the picture below the needle is a Bohin because I wanted to test the threader on both needles.  And just as I suspected, it was easier to use this threader with Lori needles due to the wider eye. With the Bohin needle it will take two or three tries to get the thread to pull through.  This is my third Hummingbird threader.  Each one was a different brand but the all worked the same.  No noticeable differences.

All four of the quilt labels were stitched in place using the Lori needles.  Should I ever need to buy needles again I would buy the multi pack Lori needles shown above. Not just for the cute packaging...HAHA!  But because the larger eye seemed to have an advantage over Bohin or John James.  Lori's needle passed the smoothness test and they didn't bend. In all fairness, bending of a needle only happens for me when I stitch the binding to the back of a quilt. 

There's two more labels to stitch in place and I'll continue using the same Lori needle.

By the way, do you add labels to your pillow covers and table runners?  

When I first started quilting 30+ years ago I never labeled my quilts.  Remembering to add a label is has been a struggle for years. Adding them to the backing before the quilt is quilted makes them harder to remove.  But I would say about 50% of the time I forget the label until after the quilt is quilted.  Maybe   I should write a note on my longarm where the quilt is pinned to the frame.....GOT A LABEL?  That should solve the problem! HAHA!

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