Sewing needle

High-quality embroidery needles are plated with two-thirds platinum and one-third titanium alloy.

[9] The early limitation was the ability to produce a small enough hole in a needle matrix, such as a bone sliver, not to damage the material.

Traces of this survive in the use of awls to make eyelet holes in fabric by separating rather than cutting the threads.

A point that might be from a bone needle dates to 61,000 years ago and was discovered in Sibudu Cave, South Africa.

[10] A needle made from bird bone and attributed to archaic humans, the Denisovans, estimated to be around 50,000 years-old, and was found in Denisova Cave.

[11] A bone needle, dated to the Aurignacian age (47,000 to 41,000 years ago), was discovered in Potok Cave (Slovene: Potočka zijalka) in the Eastern Karawanks, Slovenia.

[12] Bone and ivory needles found in the Xiaogushan prehistoric site in Liaoning province date between 30,000 and 23,000 years old.

[14] 8,600-year-old Neolithic needle bones were discovered at Ekşi Höyük, western Anatolia, in present-day Denizli Province.

However, copper and bronze needles do not need to be as long: the eye can be made by turning the wire back on itself and redrawing it through the die.

[clarification needed] The next major break-through in needle-making was the arrival of high-quality steel-making technology from China in the tenth century, principally in Spain in the form of the Catalan furnace, which soon extended to produce reasonably high quality steel in significant volumes.