Sena had some sewing to do the other day and bought a small sewing kit. It included something we’ve never seen before—a needle threader. It’s shown in the featured image above.
Sena asked me to help her get the needle threaded. I tried to do it the old-fashioned way and, of course, couldn’t get the job done. She finally did it on her own, the old-fashioned way.
I was curious about the needle threader though, and finally tried it when I got the chance to thread another needle for her. It worked.
When I was a kid, I used to thread needles for my mother when she needed to do some sewing. I had pretty good eyesight then, now not so much.
I read that the face on the handle side of the needle threader represents Ariadne, who is very important in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Minos, who ruled Crete back in the day. The short story is that the Greek hero Theseus got roped into a battle with a half-man, half-monster called the Minotaur held in a big cave with a labyrinth. Sacrificial persons couldn’t find their way out and were wasted by the Minotaur.
Ariadne helped Theseus by giving him a ball of thread, which he used to find his way out of the labyrinth after he slew the Minotaur. I think she later was hired to be the goddess of mazes and labyrinths. It’s a neat story when you tell the short version, although the usual Greek myths are always a lot more complicated, much like modern soap operas.
Anyway, I practiced a little with the needle threader, which by the way probably got patented in the 1930s. I’ll probably never pick it up again, but there’s no denying it’s a fascinating and useful little gadget.
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