A pin is a thin sharp stick with at the other end a head, like a nail. You can connect pieces of fabric or leather provisionally to each other with pins before sewing.
A needle is a pin without a head, but with a small hole to stab a wire through. You can make them by flattening the end of a pin and punch a hole in there or curl back a loop at the end. Nowadays, needles are made ​​of steel. Formerly usually carved from bone or hard wood splinters.
In order to push a needle trough tough fabric (canvas, leather) you need a thimble (or a stone, stick...).

The sewing needle was used 18,000 years BC already! As wire were mostly used fibers of nerve or tendon.

Through the eye of the needle
It seems sometimes quite tinkering to get thread through the eye of the needle
• Use the proper needle, the eye must obviously be big enough. There are needles in many different sizes.
• Determine the correct wire length for your work. Too long wire (+ 90 cm) quickly becomes confused or clamped when sewing. To short a piece you have to baste again and again.
• Cut the wire with sharp scissors at an angle of 45 degrees. (Every little bit helps.)
• Clean the tip wet (saliva) and tighten it firmly together, so that the fibers stick together and stay.
• Keep the eye (of the needle) with plenty of light for a light surface, the opening towards you.
• Take the wire about 1 cm behind the wet tip, support both hands with each other and aim the tip through the eye.

You can also use some hair gel or varnish, that makes the wire stronger and straighter.

Nowadays there are also needles with a musketone-shaped eye with a small opening in the side. You can simply catch the thread with it. Even by touch.

Or use a needle threader which is in most sewing kits. Or improvise it with a piece of iron wire or thin copper wire from an electrical cord, fold it. Which point you cross through the eye of the needle. Trough this loop you insert the wire and then pull him with the two ends of the wire through the eye of your needle.

Make in one end of your thread a (preferably double) knot.

There are sewing needles from the Cro- Magnon man found in France from 16,000 to 25,000 BC. Archaeologists describe how they were carved and cut or scraped from bone or ivory, polished and then pierced. But it seems likely that the puncture happened first. Try to pierce a hole (like one can see on pictures of those needles) that is greater than the material that remains from a narrow, hard splinter.

There are (Roman, Celtic..) ornamental or shoulder pins (fibula) found in all sizes and shapes. A copy of 700 v.C. from Boeotia is very similar to the safety pin as we know it today.

Walter Hunt develloped in 1849, to pay his debts, the safety pin (again): on one side a point, on the other hand, a safety catch, and in the center rolled into a spring.

If you cut woven fabric can then you better fold the edges (possibly twice) to sew them. This strengthens the edge and avoids fraying.

If you can sew, you can make clothes. You probably know an emergency raincoat, made ​​of plastic (garbage) bag? Middle of the bottom you cut a hole where you can stab your head trough, as well as you also create on each side an opening for your arms.
This is also the simplest model for a tunic.
Put a rag double, sew the top and the sides togheter. Make a head and arm opening and finished it.
If you sew tubes to the the armholes you get a T - shirt. If lay the garment flat, you see the base model, a T. Hence the name. You may want to hem the edges. Invent a collar. Buttons, narrow at the waist... So you get a polo shirt, jacket, dress...
To make nice -fitting clothes you have to make the necessary components, nice cutting and fit tailor job, and sew it together. For drawing of the pieces there are also patterns to be found. Which can been, depending on the required size enlarged or resized. Take into account the extra frames that are necessary to fold the edges and sew the fabric to each other.
To prevent fraying, the edges or seams are slightly folded, often twice so there are no loose ends or wires. Folding can be (temporary) fixed by (wet) ironing.

Usually, the components are first laced with crude stitches: drafting. Only then (possibly after matching and correcting) they are firmly and permanently sewn.

In all ancient cultures was a peplos (tubular dress without sleeves) everyday clothing. Celtic women used two rectangular pieces of fabric that were attached to the sides and shoulders with two fibulae (pins), which were sometimes connected by a decorative chain. Men also wore them as a toga, or the shorter version as a tunic. Also a wrap skirt and coats were common.
The Celts also liked the pants. Which consisted first of rags which were tied with straps around the leg. (The ' Scottish' tartan were a weave of Celtic or Old Belgians.) The Romans found the pants barbaric.

A decree of 1799 forbade women in Paris without permission to wear pants on the street.
The trousers of workers was seen as a symbol of revolutionary spirit. The aristocrats wore indeed a culotte (pants just below the knee). The decree was canceled on 31/01/2013.

Archaeologists have found at the Yanghai cemetery a 3,000 to 3,300 years old wolen trousers, model riding pants. This supports the theory that trousers were invented by nomadic horse riding sherperds in Central Asia. In ancient cultures, people wore rather gowns, robes and tunics.

My mother gets everything done with some fabric and a sewing machine. As children, we were allowed to help carefully release, with a sharp needle -like gouge and a razor, all seams of old clothes. With two it was easier: one put the seams wide open, and the other unzipped the threads with a razor. Mother made of rags again other pieces. My brother once told he was very proud of his new pants from father's old coat.

If you use a button (wood disc or thick leather, or stick) you need to stiffen the buttonhole by sewing thread around the edges so they do not fray. You can sew a piece of fabric or leather on the back to reinforce the hole. The first buttonholes were just a loop.

Clothing is important in our climate. In the summer as protection from the sun. In winter to isolate us and retain body heat. Several thin layers insulate better. Fleecy fibers also keep good air retention. Remember that you lose the most heat through your head. So care especially for a hat or cap. And keep your clothes dry, otherwise the insulation is zero.