Types of Sewing Machine Needles – Sewing Needles Guide

Types of Sewing Machine Needles

Have you ever thought of sewing machines without a needle?

Sewing machines without needles is just as useless as a river without water. Hence, we know that needles are very important, and what’s more important than that is, to learn about needles and their type. Choosing the right needle for your sewing machine plays a big role in how you’re going to end up having your sewing results.

The consensus with sewing machine needles is that you would want to change your needles for every project. In this article, we’re going to be discussing the types of needles that you find, the sizes of the needles, and what needles should work best for you depending on the fabric and thread that you’re going to be using.

How many types are there?

Not using the right needle is a mistake that isn’t uncommon among most people when it comes to Sewing. The usage of the wrong type or size can lead your needles to break, it may not feed the fabric that you’re sowing and which will further lead to poor quality stitching.

However, if you follow these simple guidelines and read the information that I have provided with great thoroughness, we can be sure that you’ll master the art of choosing the perfect needles.

The first thing that you need to keep in mind is that sewing machines are highly standardized for certain brands out there. Some needles that you find on the market can mostly be compatible with high-end brands such as Brother, Janome, Elna, etc.

So buying needles without knowing whether it will be a good fit for your sewing machine, especially if you have use a regular one can be very intimidating.

It can be a little bewildering at times to think about the many different kinds of sewing machine needles and the number of sizes it has to offer. Thus, it may seem a little difficult to get a hold of different types. We’ve listed down the more commonly used sewing machine needles that you need to have for certain kinds of fabric that you use.

Universal needles

As you can tell by the name already that is the type of needle that is used universally and is compatible with any kind of fabric or sewing machine. Universal Needles are the most common types of sewing machine needles that you can find on the market.

You can use these on any kind of fabric such as woven fabrics, synthetics, and certain knit fabrics. These needles are much finer compared to the other types mentioned below and are more commonly used for lightweight fabrics.

The larger sizes of these are more often used on medium to heavyweight fabrics. A lot of professionals recommend universal needles to be used on polyester/cotton or silk for sewing.

Ballpoint needles

Ballpoint needles are used for many types of fabrics such as Jerseys, knit fabrics or something that would slowly damage the fabric if you had to poke a hole through it with a sharp needle. No one would want a needle to create holes in their knit or jersey fabric because it won’t tie the fabric together.

That’s why a ballpoint needle is required for this situation, even though it’s sharp to the touch but it wouldn’t prick your fingers. The word Ballpoint does not talk for itself, that doesn’t mean it’s going to get a ball at the end of it. These needles are made to stitch through heavy fabrics easily while creating a stronger feed into the fabrics.

Stretch Needles

Stretch needles are generally used in terms of difficult sewing processes. When you face a situation where you would have to stitch through a fabric that has a very difficult type of texture then these needles can come in handy.

When you fall into a position where the stitches are skipped and there are gooey bits on the needle or whatever you’re operating on, you will pull yourself out of the mess because you happen to have some needles at home.

These coatings are going to help in reducing friction when you’re working on a variety of different fabrics such as lycra. Or maybe anything like an elastic, which is a cloth that has rubber in it.

Also while you’re operating interfacing, fusible cables, or something with spray adhesive that creates a sticky feel on the needles, this needle provides the sort of coating the tends to reduce the sticky texture of the needle to fasten as easily as possible.

Quilting Needles

Quilting needles are built for piercers and most people would even want to call it between needles. The quilting needles have a longer taper to their point of the tip. This helps you to get through several layer allowances and make your triangle points and crossings more perfect.

They come in two sizes: 275 11s, and 90 14 in a multipack. These are wonderful when you are willing to make them work with your cotton fabrics or your batik fabrics. You can use the 75 11s for this instance, and that’s going to make a nice, perfect stitch.

Denim Needles

Denim or Jeans needles have a tendency to be the only needle people recollect to trade over to whilst they’re performing on that person material. The dense weave of the denim cloth desires the sharp factor to be equipped to get via it and to scale back the hazard of needle breakage.

These are perfect whether or not you’re running without repairing a couple of denim or maybe sewing a denim duvet that you’ve recycled out of slicing up old jeans. These are perfect and are available in 94, 116 to even larger so make certain you’ve got were given a pack of those if you’re sewing on varieties of denim or denim cloth.

Leather Needles

Did you know your sewing machine is able to stitch into leather? It will work as long as you’ve got the triangular point needles. Your leather needles ought to are available in larger sizes to assist you to create a clean, crisp new hole within the leather.

Now, if you’re performing a repair job on a piece of leather that had already been stitched in it once before, you would just want to use a normal sharp needle. Everything you need to do in that situation is to fit the duration of the stitch to the usual openings, so if you create a fresh one, make sure you have a leather needle.

Sharp Needles

These needles are made for those fabrics that are really lightweight and really tightly woven. You would like to urge a needle through an awfully small hole. This can be for satin fabric, silk fabrics, and every one of these finest sparkly fabrics

If you ever had your needle reasonably dimpled the material when you’re sowing or maybe where you see each stitch move into you see a bit run, these are your needles that you just would want to succeed in for at that point.

These ranges from a size 60 / 8 to a 90 14. Let’s start on the littlest one 60, this can be for a really finer quality of the material. You may even use this machine applique but you bought it to recollect you wish a finer thread to use in these needles.

Else your needle threader isn’t visiting run through the teeny tiny hole. Using this needle, you’ll achieve the littlest holes in your fabric. So small that it looks like you stitched it by hand. Besides 70 / 10 needles many have often admitted that they used those for piercing for quilters.

You can often use this wonderful needle with the plastic thread. It will turn out beautifully when you are stitching through the batik fabrics that are super tightly woven. To which, the needles are going to add a nice crisp stitch through it. The ’80s and ’90s are just great to have. You can these as an alternative for the universal ones.

Embroidery Needles

These needles have a rather larger eye to assist with a number of the ornamental that you just may well be using. Yet just because the name of the needle is embroidery that doesn’t mean you will not have an embroidery machine but you continue to can have a pack of those in your kit.

Anytime when you’re working with a number of slippery threads or ornamental threads and using decorative stitches on your Sewing machine, these needles are great. they need a pointy point in order that they make an awfully pretty stitch as those stitches are created on your fabric. they are available in two different sizes, a 75 11 and a 90 14 during a variety pack.

Metallic needles

These needles are called Metallic and they have a brilliant tall eye for the thread to run through. When you’re employing a metallic thread, it’s a metal thread and it’s running through while creating lots of friction because the thread goes back and forth through the needle eye.

If there’s extra friction thereon thread keep in mind that it will break. If you have got a metallic needle on and you’re still experiencing thread breakage with the thread, change the thread. Just try with another brand until you discover one that works best for your machine. Use these needles when you’re doing embroidery with metallic or any decorative stitches additionally.

How to choose the right size sewing machine needle?

As in the above topic, we have already discussed the types of sewing machine needles that are out there in the market. Now, we’re going to proceed into further discussion on how you can choose the right sewing machine needles for you depending on the size, the type of machine you use, and the type of fabric you’re going to sewing in.

The only first and foremost thing that you just have to ensure is that you are just using the proper size needles for the kind of material that you are working with. Standard size is what’s called a ninety fourteen ( 90 14) or an eighty twelve ( 80 12 ). Below could be a list of mostly metric and imperial numbers. They are:

• 90 and 80 of the metric numbers
• 12 and 14 are the imperial numbers

Many manufacturers out there, list both numbers on their packaging and you’ll be able to buy needles in a very one-size pack or a mixed pack. In 80 12 and 90 14 are suitable for medium-weight fabrics. So medium-weight cotton or linens those sorts of fabrics are greatly suitable.

However, the secret is always to check. You would like to check the material in your machine. This involves the settings that you just want to try to, the tension that you just think is correct, and also the thread that you will be using before making the ultimate garment or product with great care so you can check you’re using the correct needle for the project.

So what happens if you’re willing to sew on a soft fabric? You may like to pick up silk chiffon or a silk georgette, so in order for that, you need to select a smaller needle size. The numbers decrease as you go up. Such as, for smaller needle sizes, you could try 75 11, a 70 10 a 65 9, or a 68.

The smaller the number the finer the point of the needle. For eg, in the case of a back satin crate, you might use a 70 11, but as stated earlier, you should also check it before you use it.

One thing that you need to keep in mind is that you need to decrease the size of the needle for how lightweight the fabric is. It’s the same when you‘re heading in the opposite direction. So if you are working on a fabric that is a very heavyweight fabric you need to choose a thicker needle.

Perhaps, you’re making something out of an upholstery weight fabric or very thick denim. Then you’re going to need to increase the size of the needle such as a 116 or 110 18.

Have you ever thought about what could happen if you use the wrong needle for the job. If you’re working with a needle that’s too big for a project, you’ll find that the needlepoint grabs the fibers or weaves of the fabric.

A lot of people often find themselves complaining that their tension is wrong, and more than not because they’re using the wrong needle for a job. The needles are often too big and might not be the best needle for a task. Or in certain situations, it may be because it’s abrupt, so they may need to remove it.

Nevertheless, you do want to make sure and check that you’re using a nice sharp needle for your project and that it’s fine enough for the fabric that you’re working with.

On the other hand, when you use sewing needles that are too short for a task, the needle might fall or break down. Therefore, you need to be cautious with that, too. As mentioned earlier, if you’re using a universal needle the size is going to be 80 12 and 90 14. So that is what you should be using most of the time if you’re a beginner.

Conclusion

There is such an excellent kind of needles that are available. The secret’s ensuring that you simply are using the proper needle for the project that you’re working with and also the right size. It is so important that we get to know the different types of needles that we are going to be working with because each needle serves its own purpose.

Your universal needles are going to come in handy for doing the foremost job. However, if you would like to work with something like a jersey or the ballpoint, you are doing have to ensure that you’re purchasing a selected ballpoint needle. The same happens if you have to do a bunch of embroidery and things like that you’ll have fewer issues dealing with a similar needle.

No matter what sort of needle you’re choosing to use, you just need to make sure you know how much you’re choosing to adjust the needles. It is a rather tough problem to address as the needle makers would suggest that you ought to remove the needle within a certain hour. needle with every new project that you start.

But then, of course, it is over to your judgment on how long you’ve been using it.