When to change your sewing machine needle

Have you been told that you need to change your needle every 6-8 hours of sewing?  That it’s just like changing the tires on your car?

Does it seem like every six to eight hours of sewing is really excessive?  I mean, how much wear can a metal needle really get poking through fabric?  Rubber tires on a road, yeah, they wear out.  But your needle looks fine, right?

Remember that every minute of sewing they go through the fabric 650 to 1000 times. So after 6 hours of sewing, a needle may have poked the fabric 360,000 times.

• Stitches per minute = 1000
• Stitches per hour = 60,000
• Stitches per 6 hours of sewing = 360,000 stitches

Find me a tire that lasts 360,000 miles.

What happens when you don’t change your needle

Needles need to be changed because just like car tires they are the weakest link of the process. 

But they are also a super critical part.

Although tires can easily get punctured and go flat because they are just rubber, if they were metal they wouldn’t have the same traction.

But they wear down.  If they’re bald you’re not going to have any traction on wet roads and you either won’t get anywhere or you’ll crash.

The job that tires play in making a car work is that they grip the road (I’m sure the car people will tell me that there’s more to it than that, but roll with me).

So how is that like needles?

Needles wear down just like tires and can’t do their job.

What do sewing machine needles do?

Needles take the top thread down inside the machine to interlock it with the bobbin thread to make a stitch.  They need to be at a very specific point in the machine to pick up the bobbin thread in order to make a stitch. 

Needles are designed with sharp, thin points so they can easily pierce through fabric without making giant holes in your fabric.  But these points are delicate and wear out quickly even though they are metal. 

Once they wear out, they don’t pierce through the fabric so easily and are more likely to bend instead of sliding through easily.  

Bending, of course, means they are not likely to be at the precise place they need to be to make the stitch.

Even if they aren’t bending, the end of the needle can become rough and jagged over time, meaning that it can catch on the needle or bobbin thread and break it. 

A worn needle might even cause snags in your fabric as it’s coming in and out of the fabric. 

So changing your needle after every 6 to 8 hours of sewing is a really critical part of getting good stitching and good results on your sewing projects.

When was the last time you changed your needle?

If you can’t remember, do it now so you can be happy while sewing.