Needless to say you’ll need new needles sooner or later, but there is more types of needles out there than you think, and the right choice of needle can make a big difference. Firstly – brands of needles: at Mike’s Sewing Machine Repairs, we trust and recommend Schmetz needles. Quality needles is Schmetz reputation, and while it doesn’t sound like a big issue, believe it or not, there are some bad quality needles out there in bargain bins and department stores (we’ve even seen some with no actual eye made when the needle was cast). Apart from sewing performance, quality needles protect your machine a bit like a circuit-breaker. Poor quality needles prefer to bend and when you have a tricky situation where there is a lot of stress on your needle, you want the needle to break, not just bend. Breaking means that the shock is absorbed by the needle, not transferred up to the shaft of your machine. Secondly, the actual type of needle is important. It’s tempting to just sew with what ever is in your machine, but if you’re using the wrong needle you will get a bad result that will frustrate you enough to pack your sewing away in a huff. Schmetz needles have a guide on their website, a user app, and of course, you can pop in and see our range in our shop-front. Lastly (and this is a big point), needles go blunt. You should change your needle about every 8 hours of sewing.