Sewing Needle Knowledge

Your sewing is only going to be as good as the weakest link, and sometimes the weakest link is the least expensive item that you think of, and that is the humble needle. Needles are overlooked. People tend to leave them in their machine and sew with them until they break and then cry over the needle breaking. I would like you to stop doing that if you're guilty as charged. A needle runs approximately 50 cents.

And you don't want to run it until there's no life left in it, because it is going up and down extremely fast, and the more it goes up and down and it's having thread run through it and it's going through moving parts, it tends to get burrs on it. When it gets burrs on it, or when the point of it is not as sharp as when it was new, you tend to get runs or pulls in your fabric, and you tend to get very frustrated, you also may start to hear a little bit of a clunking noise out of your machine. The rule of thumb is to only use a needle for approximately eight hours of sewing, approximately a day, and you need to change it much more frequently if you're working on very heavy fabric, such as jeans fabric, or if you're doing heavy embroidery, or even a lot of quilting. Most of us are familiar with the standard, should we say, universal needle that most of us find as our go-to needle. It is typically numbered as an 80/12, and it is good for most woven fabrics, but I'd like to introduce you to a few others that you might wanna consider using.

The first is a 70/10. With needles, the first number is the US number, the second number is the - or rather, the first number is the metric number, the second number is the US number. The lower the number, the finer the needle. Let me say that again, the lower the number, the finer the needle. So, as you can see, these are 70/10 sharps.

A sharp means that it will have just that, a very sharp point, so it will leave a smaller hole in your sewing. It's wonderful and it's historically used for heirloom sewing, but I also like to use it for piecing when I'm doing quilting because I get a smaller hole and I also can make a tighter stitch with it. The next one that I'm going to show you is a 90/14 jeans needle, and as the name implies, it's for very heavy, very dense fabric such as denim. The 90 is wonderful, not just for jeans, but it makes a very good top stitch needle, or if you're using a very thick thread such as the Sulky 12 weight thread, it has a larger eye for the thread to go through, and you will find it's a little easier to thread the needle. Speaking of top stitch, they do make a top stitch needle.

This one is in a 100/16. As you can see, the numbers are going up. So that's why it's a stronger needle and it's also thicker and will make a little bit bigger hole. The top stitch needle is wonderful for when we're using a thick thread, again like the Sulky 12 weight, or a jeans thread, and we want to make sure that we have a very distinct stitch. The next needle is an 80/12, but it's a Metalfil needle.

This is not like your universal needle. The Metalfil is actually for metallic thread, and the eye on it is a little bit larger. When I'm using metallics, I will oftentimes use the Metalfil, but many times, I will reach for the top stitch needle instead just because the hole is a little bit bigger and therefore my thread isn't going to fray as quickly. Another 80/12 needle is the quilting needle. As the name implies, it's for quilting, but it is not for piecing.

It is designed to go through the three layers that comprise a quilt; the top layer, the batting, and the backing. And that is what this particular needle is designed to do, it's designed to simply quilt the fabric. The last needle that I've brought today are a variety of embroidery needles. This is for when you're using the rayon or the polyester thread, or even cotton, and this is a variety pack that has both a 70 and a 90 in it. Again, if you're using a little thicker thread, or if you have a little bit heavier fabric, you may want to move up to the 90.

Any of these needles will actually work for embroidery, but this is designed with it in mind given how fast the machine goes and the heat that's involved. Again, I will oftentimes switch out and use the top stitch if I'm using metallic in my embroidery, or sewing, or if I have a thread that's breaking frequently on me, a lot of times I will just switch out to the top stitch needle. The last needle that I don't have here on my display is a ballpoint needle. The ballpoint needle is strictly for knits, and as the name implies, it has a rounded tip so that it can go and slide over the woven - or the knit, if you will, the weave of the knit, and not pierce it and cause the knit to fray or run. And that's the only time you would use a ballpoint needle is with any type of a stretch fabric or a knit fabric.

But in the meantime, if you haven't tried them, give these a try and I think you'll be surprised at what a difference it makes when you use the proper needle for the task that you have at hand, and also, be sure and change your needle frequently, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the difference it makes in your sewing.