Are you having trouble threading the needle?

You start to notice, it's harder to be hand sewing darker colours, especially at night, the fine print is harder to see, and your eyes feel strained. Holding your work further away sort of assists but, threading the needle... It's hard enough to find time to sew without having to worry about being able to thread a needle.

Most of us will need reading glasses at some point, for the majority this will usually happen in our forties. As you move through the forties, fifties & sixties the natural lens of your eye thickens and becomes less elastic and slowly loses its ability to accommodate from far to near - and back again - this is known as presbyopia.

Many people will just pick up a pair of glasses from a chemist, service station or junk store and for a few these cheater glasses will work. But, if you have astigmatism, you will find it more precise and less tiring on your eyes to have lenses fitted with the correct prescription. When we have stigmatism our eyes are shaped more like a football, the cheater glasses are made with the assumption our eye is perfectly round.

Book an appointment with your local optometrist. Before the test, take notice of how you use your eyes:

• Where do you hold your sewing projects (up close or in your lap)?
• What is the approximate distance of the sewing machine from your eyes?
• Do you mostly sew during the day or at night?
• What sort of visual tasks do you do at your day job?

These tasks, which we perform daily, have different visual lengths - near, intermediate and distance. The optometrist can tailor your prescription and eyewear selection to your individual visual needs. If you do a lot of hand-work or sewing at night, consider having a pair of glasses made specifically for that task.

Even if you don't currently need glasses or contact lenses a routine eye test is recommended. The optometrist will not only look at the vision needs of your eyes, but they also look at the health of your eye and keep a watch for cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases.

In addition to eyewear also consider task lighting. The purpose of task lighting is to not only increase illuminance but also have good contrast. General lighting can be reduced when task lighting provides focused light where needed.

Different approaches for task lighting:

• Localised task lighting, where the lamp supplies both ambient light and task light
• Freely adjustable task light such as a gooseneck, balanced-arm lamp, or swing-arm light
• Magnifying task light, where the task light comes with a built-in magnifying glass
• Asymmetric task light, where the lamp is placed at the side of the work area

Task lighting can also be built into machinery, where a specific work area needs illumination. Many of the new sewing machines now have multiple LED lights across the body of the machine. Even if you don't currently wear glasses having good lighting while you work helps to reduce eye strain.

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What to consider when buying a new sewing machine?