The designs ThreadABead creates uses beads with a hole diameter smaller than the width of a regular sewing needle, so it is essential to use a specialist beading needle.

If you look at our needle section you will find lots of choice, so which should you choose?

Quality

Something to consider first is the cost. There is a wide range of prices from our Asian beading needles to our most expensive Tulip beading needles, and that tends to give you a guide to the quality.

Typically, the cheaper the needle you buy the lower the quality of metal and finish and the less time it will last. You will find you are replacing your needle a few times through a project and during that time it will get bent and sometimes the hole of the needle will collapse and start damaging your thread.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a cheap needle, but it does have its limitations.

Our most expensive needle is a Tulip needle, which tends to be most beaders favourite needle of choice. This needle is highly polished and has a gold-plated eye hole for smooth beading and reduced thread snags. You can expect these needles, if you look after them, to last many projects.

Size

You know you need a beading needle, you know to consider the quality … now you are seeing all these different sizes! Well beading needles come in 4 sizes 10, 11, 12 and 13. 10 being the thickest and 13 the thinnest and most flexible. You may be thinking why are there different sizes? This is because beads come with a variety of sized holes and the amount of passes a thread will need to go through a bead will dictate the size of the needle that you are able to pass through that bead.

For the majority of our projects we recommend a size 10 beading needle. On a rare occasion we may recommend using a size 12 or 13 for part of a project where there is not much flexibility or lots of passes of thread, but we will always state this in the pattern description.

Something to note is the thinner the needle the less wear you will get out of it, so even a good quality size 13 Tulip needle will not last as long as a size 10. And returning back to Quality v Cost you should compare needles of the same size when determining this.

Length

There are two length of beading needle, Long and Short. By far the most common is long and tends to be what the majority uses, however this is down to personal preference. I just cannot get on with a short needle, but for some beaders it is all they will bead with. So, I would say if in doubt go long, and if you are finding it cumbersome then switch to short.