Awl
A slender, pointed hand tool used to pierce fabric, mark precise points, or guide fabric under a sewing machine needle without touching the blades.
An awl is basically a sharpened spike set into a handle, and it earns its place in a sewing kit doing several small jobs no other tool does quite as well. Poking precise holes for buttons or eyelets, marking dart points and other single-point pattern markings straight through both pattern and fabric, and — the use I reach for it most — guiding fabric right up next to a moving needle when I need my fingers to stay well clear of the machine.
It's a genuinely underrated tool for a beginner's kit, mostly because it doesn't look like it does much next to shears or a tracing wheel. But for anything that needs a single precise point marked rather than a whole line — bust points, buttonhole placement, corner pivots — it's faster and more accurate than trying to eyeball it with a pin or a pencil.
The point stays sharp for a long time with normal use, but I keep mine away from anything that would dull or bend the tip — no prying, no using it as a seam ripper substitute. It's a marking and piercing tool, not a lever.