At the end of the 1800s there was a Danish pastor’s wife living in Aurdal in Valdres. She brought eight pins from her childhood home. It is said that she counted the pins every night before she went to bed to make sure that none of them were missing.
Pins were forged one-by-one by hand. As the import of costly fabrics accelerated in the 1400s, the need for pins to hold the fabrics together increased. The French pins had a reputation for being the best because they were smooth and did not fray the fabric. When the English began to make brass pins in the 1600s, these were the ones to have. Attempts were made to start their own pin industry in the US in the 1700s, but even President Washington had to order his pins from England. It was not until 1824, when the American Lemul Wellmann patented a machine that could make pins in one operation, that European producers had competition. Wellmann’s pins had heads that prevented them falling off – a huge improvement.
The sewing needle has never been regarded as an important tool but it was just as significant as the spear in the prehistoric times. Sewing needles probably date back to more than 10,000 years ago. Pins were essential to make the garments that kept the bodies warm and dry during the ice age. It was not until the Iron Age, about 1250 BC, that they started to make needles from iron. And when the Arabs conquered Spain in 600 AD, they brought with them the art of forging steel. Steel needles did not bend as easily.
In the early 1800s, needles were made partly mechanically. Strands of steel were cut, annealed and sharpened at both ends. The needles were turned flat in the middle and two eyes were made. They were then split in half, the eyes were smoothed and the heads rounded. They had to be hardened, polished, washed, dried and eventually wrapped in silver paper with black paper on the outside to prevent rusting. In the colonies, the climate was in some places so humid that they couldn’t use the regular needles. Here they had to forge needles from gold or silver so that they wouldn’t rust.