Which sewing machine needle should you use?
One thing’s for sure: You should change your sewing machine needles often. Today’s fabrics have finishes and materials that can dull needles quickly, so for optimal results, use a fresh one with each sewing project. The wrong needle can damage, tear and pucker your fabric, cause skipped stitches, and it can even throw off your machine’s timing and cause other types of damage. But there are so many kinds – which should you use?
First, most home machines use the same types of needles. So even though there are Singer brand needles, if you use a Singer machine, you don’t have to buy Singer needles. The fit is universal, for the most part, it’s the type of needle that matters. You must match it to your project.
There are many types of needles, including:
Ball point
Regular point
Denim/jeans
Twin needles
Leather needles
Sharps
Breaking them down
Ball-point needles: Ball-point needles are designed for knits. The round tip allows it to find a “space” in the knit and push between without tearing. A needle with a regular point can tear a knit by puncturing the yarns. It can damage the fabrics and make knits curl. It can also result in skipped stitches.
Regular-point needles: These are designed for woven fabrics of all kinds. The sharp point punctures through the fabric’s threads.
Denim or jean needles: For tough, woven fabrics like denim, cotton duck or canvas. These needles are strong and super-sharp.
Twin needles: For decorative use, twin needles stitch two lines of parallel stitching. (Hey! Let’s do a tutorial on this soon!)
Leather needles: Wedge-points help penetrate extra-tough materials like leather and vinyl without tearing, but they do leave permanent holes, so accuracy is imperative.
Sharps/Microtex needles: Good for finely woven fabrics because the extra-sharp needle can penetrate threads of the fabric easier and more precisely, resulting in fewer skipped stitches. Also great for top-stitching, pintucking and edgestitching.
So what do the numbers on the packages mean?
Needles usually have two numbers for the size, such as 70/10. The first number is the European size, which can range from 60-120 and refers in hundredths of millimeters to the diameter on part of the shaft (near the eye). The second number is the American size, which ranges from 8-19 and doesn’t refer to a particular measurement, but, rather, is arbitrary. These American sizes do correspond with Euro sizes, though, and a larger number represents a larger needle.
So what determines the needle size you use? The weight of your fabric. Lightweight fabrics will use a smaller needle size and heavy fabrics will use larger sizes. It’s pretty much that simple. A bigger needle will punch a hole in a fine fabric. A fine needle will break when used on a tough fabric.
