Misuya Chubei Sashiko Needles | 5 Hand-Inspected Japanese Embroidery Needles | Kyoto Traditional Needle Maker Since 1819 | Made in Japan

✦ MISUYA CHUBEI SASHIKO NEEDLES ✦ Hand-inspected Japanese sewing needles from Kyoto's 200-year-old needle maker. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌ABOUT MISUYA CHUBEI Misuya Chubei is one of Japan's last remaining traditional needle makers, founded in Kyoto in 1819 (Bunsei 2). For over two centuries, six generations of needle artisans have crafted sewing needles using techniques passed down through the workshop — preserved as a living tradition of Japanese craftsmanship. The Misuya name itself dates back to 1655, when the Emperor Gosai bestowed the title on Kyoto's imperial needle makers — a heritage of more than 400 years. There is a Kyoto saying: "Once you pass through the Misuya curtain, your needle work becomes second nature." ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌WHAT MAKES MISUYA NEEDLES DIFFERENT Most modern needles are mass-produced and machine-polished. Misuya needles are still made and inspected one by one — the difference becomes obvious the first time you stitch with one. ▸ HAND-HEAT-TREATED STEEL A secret tempering method gives the needle just the right balance — firm enough to push through dense fabric, flexible enough to flex briefly before breaking (the mark of a fine needle, not a brittle one). ▸ VERTICALLY-POLISHED SURFACE Unlike machine-polished needles (horizontally polished), Misuya needles are polished in the direction of stitching. Microscopic vertical grooves guide the needle through the fabric with almost no resistance. No plating is applied — just pure, polished steel. ▸ NEAR-PERFECT ROUND EYE The eye is drilled and polished to be as close to a true circle as possible — making it easy to thread sashiko thread, and preventing the thread from twisting or fraying as you stitch. ▸ TAPERED POINT The point is finished at a precise angle that slips between fabric fibers rather than cutting through them — protecting delicate textiles like fine cotton and linen. ▸ HAND-INSPECTED, ONE BY ONE Every single needle is checked by hand for the point shape, eye finish, body straightness, and steel hardness before it goes into the package. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌WHAT'S INCLUDED · 5 × Misuya Chubei Sashiko Needles · Original Misuya paper wrap (the traditional Japanese "ohōchō" packaging that protects needles from humidity) NEEDLE LENGTHS (5 different sizes for different patterns): · 36.4 mm — Short: small motifs & detailed work · 45.5 mm — Medium-short: general sashiko on cotton · 51.5 mm — Medium: most common, versatile length · 54.5 mm — Medium-long: long running stitches · 66.7 mm — Long: traditional sashiko, multiple stitches loaded at once The variety lets you pick the right needle for each pattern and fabric — exactly how traditional Japanese stitchers do. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR NEEDLE · FINE COTTON, SMALL PATTERNS: Use 36.4 or 45.5 mm · EVERYDAY SASHIKO ON COTTON: Use 45.5 or 51.5 mm · LARGE PATTERNS, BIG STITCHES: Use 54.5 or 66.7 mm · THICK DENIM, BORO MENDING: Use 51.5 or 54.5 mm (longer = more leverage) Traditional sashiko stitchers load several stitches onto a long needle before pulling it through — the 66.7 mm length is ideal for this technique. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌PERFECT FOR ✓ Sashiko, hitomezashi, kuguri-zashi, and moyō-zashi ✓ Visible mending and boro stitching ✓ Hand quilting and patchwork ✓ Japanese hand embroidery & slow stitching ✓ A meaningful gift for embroidery & craft enthusiasts ✓ Collectors of traditional Japanese craft tools ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌CARE & STORAGE · Store in the original paper wrap when not in use — it's designed to protect against humidity. · Keep away from moisture; wipe dry after each session. · If the needle eye snags thread, polish the inner edge briefly with a piece of leather or fine cloth. · With proper care, Misuya needles last for years of daily use. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌SHIPPING · Ships from Japan with tracking · Carefully packed in a padded envelope to keep needles straight · Estimated delivery: see shipping details above ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌IMPORTANT NOTES · These needles are made by Misuya Chubei (Kyoto). MA NO CRAFT is an authorized reseller curating Japanese craft tools for international makers. · Sharp tool — please handle with care and keep away from young children and pets. · Individual needle lengths may vary by ±0.5 mm due to hand-finishing. · The paper wrap design may vary slightly between batches. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌MORE FROM MA NO CRAFT Also available in our shop: · Sashiko Starter Kit (complete kit with these needles, thread, denim, and pattern sheets) · Stick & Stitch — Water-Soluble Pattern Sheets (3 editions available) · Sashiko Pattern Book PDFs (digital download) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▌ABOUT MA NO CRAFT MA NO CRAFT is a small studio in Japan curating authentic Japanese craft tools and patterns for makers worldwide. We work directly with traditional makers like Misuya Chubei to bring their work to a global audience — with care for both authenticity and accessibility. Handcraft from Japan. 🇯🇵 Thank you for supporting independent craft and centuries- old tradition.