Japanese Rice Bags

Lately, I've been having fun making some Japanese Rice Bags.  These bags ere used to take rice to the temples during holidays.

Also, I'm drawn to hand stitching these days.  So making these bags couples my love of embroidery and machine stitching.  

I think it's interesting how my artistic life goes through stages.  I try something new and if I liked the process, I'll do it for weeks until something else captures my attention and I repeat the process.  To me, being an artist is all about letting my mind wander and my hands learning new skills.  Eventually, it all comes together and I wonder "Why haven't I done this for years?"

And so it is with embroidery.  I loved doing this when I was making Stupendous Stitching pieces but stoppd for more than 5 years.  Now that I'm doing it again (in a different way) I remembered why hand stitching was so satisfying.  

​My current dilemma is finding the perfect needle that is sharp enough to sew through batiks and btting  like butter and has an eye large enough to handle pearl cotton thread and 5 strand embroidery floss.  Any ideas will be much appreciated!