right|thumb|19th-century needlecase of bone, lead, wood, glass pearls, amber, leather, bronze, and iron. Nivkh people|Nivkh or Evenki people, [[Amur River basin, Russia.]] A needlecase or needle case is a small, often decorative, holder for sewing needles. Early needlecases were usually small tubular containers of bone, wood, or bronze with tight-fitting stoppers, often designed to hang from a belt. Needlecases are often components of an étui and are typically one of the tools attached to a chatelaine.A pin poppet is a similar container for pins, common in the 18th century. Bodkin cases, made
right|thumb|19th-century needlecase of bone, lead, wood, glass pearls, amber, leather, bronze, and iron. Nivkh people|Nivkh or Evenki people, [[Amur River basin, Russia.]] A needlecase or needle case is a small, often decorative, holder for sewing needles. Early needlecases were usually small tubular containers of bone, wood, or bronze with tight-fitting stoppers, often designed to hang from a belt. Needlecases are often components of an étui and are typically one of the tools attached to a chatelaine.A pin poppet is a similar container for pins, common in the 18th century. Bodkin cases, made for larger, thicker bodkin needles, were made in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
== History == Early sewing needles were precious items and easily lost. Needlecases were a necessity for storing these fragile objects, and are found in cultures around the world. Tubular bronze needlecases are common finds from Viking-age sites in Europe. Cane needlecases were found in a grave from Cerro Azul, Peru, dated to 1000–1470 AD. Bone, leather and metal needlecases have been found from Medieval London, and bone or ivory needlecases were made by Inuit. Bone and ivory needlecases and pin poppets were also popular in 18th century America.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).