There is available a commercial storage for the long thin pointed metal needle.
It’s called a “Lubricated Needle Wand”. A wand a bit longer than the needle and made of thin plastic pipe is corked at one end. The other end has a cork in it also, but before inserting it the cork has had a hole put in it. Before this cork is put in the end of the tube some White Petroleum Jelly which is used as a heel and hand skin softener has been put in the tube. The Jelly is readily available at chemists and many supermarkets. The long

One idea of the lubricant is that when the needle is pulled from the wand it will come out lubricated. If this lubricant doesn’t seem to be coating the needle, first try running your fingers along the needle to distribute the lubricant evenly. Then consider storing the wand, with its needle in it, vertically in a warm place. This should see the Jelly soften and move to the bottom end of the wand to surround the hole in the cork.

At times the petroleum jelly may need replenishing. I tried using a hypodermic plunger to do this. But when I withdrew it, because of the consequent build up of air, the jelly oozed back out of the hole. I decided I would have to remove the cork out and put the jelly in directly.

Getting the cork with the hole in it out of the hollow wand may be a real challenge. In my case, the cork was flush with the surrounding tube, allowing no purchase on it. How was I to get the cork out without badly damaging it? First, I tried loosening the cork by gently but firmly pushing it in a tiny bit to free it from the sides of the tube. It sank in further!
To withdraw the cork the first step was to make a cork puller. I used to work in a chemist shop and there was a hand-made puller to get out corks that had been forced into their bottles. It was built of three lightweight wires, twisted together at the top end and formed as a short shaft and then the three wires were left as legs. Somewhat like a three-legged octopus. At the foot of each leg the wire was a bent over like the short leg of letter L, and not being wider than the mouth of the bottle [tube]. The legs were splayed apart with the hand before being inserted into the bottle. The puller legs were inserted in to the bottle and the wires opened because of the tension release. The bottle was then turned upside down and the cork joggled into a somewhat vertical position within the three legs. Then as the puller was withdrawn down the neck of the bottle the slope of the neck caused the wires to draw together and grip behind the cork and so the cork was pulled out of the bottle.
I used a similar thing to get the cork out of the wand end, but turned the short leg claws outwards before inserting it in through the cork hole. Because of the narrowness of the hole I had to insert each leg separately. I managed to get the cork out after several tries.

I put in more jelly and then considered how to make it easier to get the cork out in future.
I came up with the solution of getting some gut/nylon/monofilament fishing line and put it around one side of the cork, across the bottom of it, and up the other side and allowed the nylon to protrude several inches out each side of the top of the cork. I then tied a knot to fasten the ends of the nylon together. I then inserted the cork back into the end of the wand. Now when I want the cork out, I just pull the nylon on both ends equally and this draws the cork draw out easily. The nylon is left in place and because it is such a light colour it doesn’t detract from the spectators’ view of the wand or get in my way much.