The to-be-repaired box was filling up so out came the sewing box. Two broken needles and one [the last] broken needle threader later, I found a pack of self-threading [???] needles. They have a tiny notch at the top of the eye to pull the thread down into the eye... half an hour later I finally managed to thread one. I think my eyes are going the same way as the rest of me. So that is my repairs done but Tikva's toys that just need a few stitiches can wait. Well she has more than enough to be going on with!
Self threading needles ! That sounds brilliant, I spent so long trying to thread one the other week I decided that I must be trying to thread a pin or I was at the wrong end I'll look into getting some of those
Believe it or not, those needles plus the needle threaders were sent to me by an expat American living in Germany! I know my sight is not perfect, having worn spectacles since I was about five-years-old, but even with my latest prescription reading specs [and my fairly useless hands] I just cannot thread a needle the normal way. There used to be a tiny haberdashery in the town here but they closed, and when I was first working in Tel Aviv there was a tiny little stall round the corner from the office which sold needles, embroidery scissors, and all sort of little things like that. My thimble and my little leather needle case were from my original mini sewing box which a penfriend in France sent me when I was 15 and I have reels of different coloured cotton and polyester threads, some of which came from a great-aunt who was a machinist, and some my twin brought over when she visited England from the US - according to the label on the reels they were 10 for $1 I now use a small toolbox as a sewing box as the plastic one I brought from England [the tiny one having broken when I was at university] finally fell to pieces, and the small toolbox is ideal. I tend to keep things that do come in use at times although why I have kept Father's army shoe brushes from WWII I have no idea as I do not own any leather shoes now! And I still have the china and cutlery from when I was first married, many many years ago.
I am not screaming, honestly I am not [liar] but having re-sewn one of the side seams on one of my kaftans on Sunday... ..the other side seam has decided to come apart. Why are things so shoddily made these days?
Self-threading needles - a dream come true. I can never see the eye of the needle so it takes about 50 attempts to blindly keep pushing the thread towards the needle before the 'eureka' moment. Shoddy isn't the word for most things these days. I bought a new coat last year and the first time I tried to zip it up, the bottom of the zip came away from the coat - needless to say, it went back. Even the car - it's just come out of the body shop for a small repair. They valeted it prior to pick up and they've made a mess of the passenger seat. It now has water rings - three of them - that weren't there when it went in. It's hit and miss as to whether any purchase will work and customer service really does seem to be a thing of the past. Rant over xx
There is no way I could ever thread a needle normally - even the needle threader wavered all over the place before it actually went through the eye. I am rather puzzled though as Laurence sent me three or four, I cannot remember now, and I had assumed that I had put them in the bottom layer of my sewing box. Still in the envelop. But I they were not there and there is nowhere else I would have put them. After all, the two packs of needles he sent me were in the box, the top layer actually, but the other needle threaders? The needles are not self-threading but have a minute notch at the top of the eye - and even trying to get the thread over the notch and pull it down was not so easy with my lousy hands and eyes, but it was better than being stuck with kaftans that were open all down one side! The kaftans were cheapo ones from Amazon, about £10 each, I think, although the postage was not to my liking, but the kaftans were what I wanted. Nice, floor length, very lightweight but not see-through, but having to re-sew the side seams is a bit of a booger. I think I will check them all and just add some stitches and the top and bottom of each seam on the others. Still, you get what you pay for so some difficulty repairing seams is not the end of the world. Customer service? I have had some really good service from various stores in China that sell through AliExpress [the retail site of Alibaba who are, I think, the biggest wholesalers in the Far East. And you cannot beat iHerb for their customer service. The funniest customer service I received though was from a medical supplies company in the US. I had bought some puppy pads from eBay - the only ones I could find that were the exact size to fit Tikki's crate - 17" x 24". I put in an offer, which was accepted, very cheap even though the shipping was not, but still worth it. But I made a mistake, and ended up with six hundred of the things!!! Yep, two boxes of 300 pads. No wonder the shipping was a bit high, or so I though. But they were [and still are as I have yet to open the second box!] very very thin and tiny puppy claws just shredded them. So I emailed and said what I thought of them, not fit for the purpose blah blah blah, and by return email I was told that my money would be refunded in full, including the cost of shipping, and that I should keep them. Yeah well, never look a gift horse in the mouth - or 600 free puppy pads!
