How to pick a sewing machine needle

When you’re in a store looking at sewing machine needles, how do you know which one to use? 

Does it really matter which one you use?  What do all those little numbers and slashes actually mean?

Why the right sewing machine needle matters

There are so many needles! Is there more to consider than just what size to use?

The needle is in a lot of ways like the tires on your car.  Tires don’t seem like much compared to the engine and gears that make the wheels turn. 

But if you have bald tires in an ice storm? Does your car have any chance of moving?  The engine doesn’t really matter at that point, right?

The tires make sure the engine gets you down the road.

Needles are the connection between the sewing machine and getting stitches made in the fabric.  And just like the tires are interacting with the road, needles interact with both the fabric and the thread.

Read this whole post to understand all the parts of a needle so you can pick a needle that makes sewing with different fabrics and threads like driving easily down the road regardless of the weather conditions.

You’ll understand what the needle equivalent to all weather tires is and what types of fabric and thread conditions mean you need a different needle.

What do sewing machine needle numbers mean?

Let’s start with the size of the needle.  That’s those numbers.  There are two because there are two different measurement systems – European and US.

The US system goes from 4 to 16.  The European system is based on 100ths of a millimeter.

So a size 80 needle is 80 hundredths of a millimeter.

When you’re trying to remember which needle size is bigger, remember that bigger number means bigger needle.

The US measurement system is the same.  A larger number means a larger needle.

But larger in what way?

The size refers to the diameter or thickness of the shaft. 

Thicker, bigger needles are stronger.

Why does a needle need to be strong?

It has to poke through the fabric and stay straight as it does so. 

In order to make a stitch, a needle has to be in a certain position inside the machine or order to pick up the bobbin thread.  

If it has a hard time pushing through the fabric, then it might deflect or bend a little bit and not be in the right spot to pick that bobbin thread up, and you won’t get a stitch, or worse, it will come down into the machine in the wrong place and hit something and either break, or worse, break something inside the machine.

So you want your needle to be big enough, or strong enough not to bend when it goes through the fabric.

Why not just use the biggest needle?

Because they leave bigger holes in the fabric.  If you have a very fine fabric and use a big giant needle you’re going to have these big holes that will show in the fabric.

So you want to pick the size needle that is appropriate for the weight or thickness of your fabric, large enough that it doesn’t bend but not so big that it leaves unnecessarily large holes.

Sewing machine needle size chart

Other factors in choosing a needle

But there’s more going on with needles that just the size.  I mean the store display would be pretty simple, just needles of different sizes, not all these different kinds of needles.

There are four other ways that needles can differ and both can have a big effect on how happy you are with your sewing. These are the things that help you pick a needle specific for special conditions like you pick special tires if you live with snow and ice.

Sewing machine needle points

Although to your finger a needle just seems pointy, the points of different types of needles are actually different.

When I started sewing there were just three type of points.  There were sharp points, ball points and universal points. Although there are many more variations now, they still are based on these three basic types.

Sharp points

Sharp points are just what you would expect.  Nice and pointy.  These needles are good for going through tightly woven fabrics.  Because they are sharp they can cut right through the fabric.

If you cut a thread in a woven fabric, it doesn’t necessarily ravel fast. Think about your jeans when they get a hole. Often the hole still has threads running across.  The edges are pretty clean – just where the thread have been worn out or cut.  The fabric is still holding together even though some threads have worn out and broken.

Ball points

But knit fabrics are different.  Knits are just like miniature sweaters. 

Knits are generally knit with one long piece of yarn.  If you cut one of those strands or threads it could start to unravel like getting a run in stockings.

So those sharp needles can cut threads and cause little runs along the seam.

That’s why there are ball point needles.  They still seem pretty sharp to your finger, but they are actually rounded a tiny bit on the end so the point of the needle can’t cut the threads in the fabric.

A ball point needle works well on knits because knit fabrics are usually a little easier to push through than woven fabrics.  But a ball point needle will have a little bit of trouble poking through a woven fabric.

So you really want to have a sharp needle for your woven fabrics and a ball point needle for your knits.

Universal points

Universal needles are a cross between sharps and ball points.  They are a little sharper than a ballpoint.  They work pretty well on both wovens and knits.  But they are kind of like all weather tires. All weather tires work well pretty much all of the time.  But If you are driving over the mountains in the winter you want something designed specifically for those conditions.

Nowadays, manufacturers have all different special kinds of points, but when you’re reading the needle package, you’ll still see the terms like universal and ball point, so it helps to understand them.

Sewing machine needle eye

The next part of the needle is the eye. That’s where the thread goes through.

Needles can have different size eyes. 

A bigger eye can be useful not only for thicker thread, but all to protect fragile threads from the extra friction of going through the eye.  The thread actually passes back and forth through the eye quite a few times before it’s used in a stitch, so reducing wear for fragile threads is important.

Needles designed for metallic or specialty threads often have larger eyes.

Sewing machine needle scarf

The scarf of the needle is right behind the eye. 

It is there so that the hook can grab the needle thread and wrap it around the bobbin thread to make a stitch. 

If you are sewing things that tend to grab and pull on the needle like highly elastic knits, a larger scarf helps the machine have more room to grab that thread even if the needle is getting pulled. That way you will get fewer skipped stitches.

Sewing machine needle coatings

Needles now have all different types of coatings – from Titanium to prevent things like fusible adhesives from building up on the needle, to just plain chrome plating so needles slide through the fabric easier.

Steps to choose a sewing machine needle

Are you overwhelmed?

• Start with the right size for your fabric
• Using special fabric or thread? Read the packages!

Now that you know all these terms the the backs of those packages are going to make a lot more sense.

Needles seem like such tiny things, and the differences seem even smaller, but picking the right needle can mean the difference between fighting your machine and happy sewing.

If you’re fighting your machine, check out Sewing Machine School.