Hi guys, I am the inventor of the Spiral Eye side threading needle. Your conversation is very interesting to me. It is from a very different view point than what I usually hear. My needle is new, but I have been selling them for over two years, on line, in some stores and at state fairs and events. There is a huge market for them. A needle is the most ubiquious of tool in the world. It is used in surgery, to mending, crafts, to fishing. The design I came up with has a very precarious geometry to keep the thread inside and not snag the material you are sewing. The technology to make it did not exist fifty years ago. I also have just been written up in a newspaper in Denmark and my website sales have gone through the roof. Maybe the Danes sew more than the Americans.
I imagine this might have an unplanned benefit to sewers -- you can use a smaller needle for the thickness of thread you're sewing with. Even using a threader requires you to pull the string through doubled. However, it looks like the eye of the needle is thicker than other needles of the same size. I can't be sure, because I can't tell how big the needle in the picture is.
Moreover, the first comment on that page points out that the self-threading needle is ill-suited for typical sewing because the eye is so big. And the side-threading needle in the article seems to have an even larger eye.
Still, needles are not that hard to thread. It's not like there's a great nationwide backlog of sewing that can finally recommence because people can finally thread their needles again.
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