Get yourself some dowels. The ones I got were pre-cut to 15 inches, but you can cut your own from the long lengths, too.
Sand the point down on rough sand paper
The use a smoother sand paper to get everything nice.
Get out some wax and rub it on your needle like you are drawing on it with a tiny crayon.
Vigorously rub your needle until the wax melts into the wood. Keep adding wax and repeating until the needle is smooth. Them apply a light layer of oil. I used coconut, because that was what I had on hand.
You can glue big old bead to the ends if you want, or you can be lazy like me and just wrap a scrap of fabric around it many times and glue it in place.
