I treated myself recently and bought the following tools from Micro-Mark to assist me when working with rigging in tight spots.

The tool at the top is a ship modellers Tight Spot Rigging Scissor, the second one is a 3-1/2" Ear Polypus which is a fancy name for tweezers, and the last one is a Surgeon's Splinter Forcep. All three are very well made instruments and reasonably priced too. The splinter forcep has a needle like tip with serated jaws which makes picking up tiny objects like eyelets a breeze. The scissors is the tool I was most looking forward to and it works like a charm.
I showed these to my family and told them that I'm prepared for just about any minor surgical procedure should they need my services. If you could only see the expressions on their faces.

Cheers,
Chris