Finding an old style tool

So I have this old bodkin that I have been using for sequins and beading and the like. Now that I have a dancing daughter I find I am getting a lot more call for such things. I used to do them but seldom for there hasn't been much call for such fancies these last couple of decades. I should like to get another bodkin like the one I have as the current one is rather ancient and I fear some bit of it will become damaged. To give you an idea of how old it is, the handle is faux tortoise shell made of celluloid, so at least a hundred years or thereabouts.

The problem I have encountered is I cannot find a new bodkin made like the old one. The old one is just a handle with a screw mechanism very much like you find at the needle of a sewing machine, so that you can just clamp a needle into it. Not only is it very useful to be able to change the size of your point at will, but what I have been doing is clamping a machine needle in and using it for a fine stitching awl. It is excellent for sequins and beading. It's faster than regular hand stitching, and allows finer control than machine stitching (plus no chance of hitting a bead, thus saving on needles).

I have come to the conclusion that if the thing is still available, it is called something else. If anyone has a clue as to what it might be called I will search for it. Otherwise I am thinking very hard of making one. One made to purpose could include features that would make it even easier to use, something to hold the thread right on it like a leather stitching awl springs immediately to mind... I own two leather stitching awls, there is no way on earth you could put a fine enough needle to do fancy work on light fabric in them. As an experiment I tried a line of sequins and a double row of seed beads on

8mm habotai with the smallest needle. Yeah that was eight kinds of disaster. It pretty much makes a small eyelet with every stitch, plus it really dislikes silk thread, and isn't much more fond of lighter cotton. Lets not even talk about the mess it made on a scrap of rayon with monofiliment.

NightMist

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I'm raising a developmentally disabled child.  What's your superpower?
Reply to
NightMist
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I don't recognize it by the name of bodkin (which to me, is something you use to pull ribbon or elastic through a casing), but search "tambour" here:

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Or maybe a zardosi needle?

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Reply to
Kay Lancaster

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Reply to
Roberta

I had to leave Lacis and walk away very quickly. Fine, special tools really call to me. Polly

Reply to
Polly Esther

documentation.pdf

Well good morning! It never once occurred to me to look at tambour needles, and actually think! I have done tambour, but It is not something I do often. My hooks are old bone or steel stand alones that I more often use for fine sewings in other laces. I've seen the changeable hooks though, and my brain still says bodkin handle for the part you put them in. Since I buy from Lacis I feel a bit foolish.

There were bodkins before elastic, they were a needle in a handle. When you needed a pokey thing smaller than your stilletto, that is what you used. In truth a fine tambour needle can do many of the same things if you are careful, manipulating warp or weft threads in cut and drawn work, pushing threads around in assorted techniques, making perforations in fine fabrics when you need to be finicky, a lot of little things that it just makes easier though you could do without. And of course there are also the other sort that were used by witchfinders.

In case you haven't noticed after all this time, a lot of my terminology is a bit antique. Comes of learning from grammas and very old books I think.

That zardozi article is actually something I have been looking for for a while now, I just didn't know what it was called and hadn't sat down to do a full on "gonna darned well find it" search. Plus it has the name of other techniques to look up! Yay!

NightMist

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I'm raising a developmentally disabled child.  What's your superpower?
Reply to
NightMist

You think the catalog's bad... my sister in law once took me to the store... Smoked credit cards...

Kay

Reply to
Kay Lancaster

OMG never heard of this before, dangerous, so much good stuff, things that I've been looking for, for years. Thanks.

Janner France

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Reply to
Janner

Found some ari hooks for sale:

Kay

Reply to
Kay Lancaster

Oh my, how we could have enjoyed that back in our Mardi Gras days. Polly

"Kay Lancaster" Found some ari hooks for sale:

Reply to
Polly Esther

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