A sewing machine is a common household item found in every traditional family. Like other electronics, your sewing machine needs maintenance and care too.
If you realize you are getting the thread tangled a lot by dropping the stitches, then changing the needle is perhaps what you need to try.
By not changing the needle as regularly as desired, you will gradually realize you are throwing out the timing of your sewing machine, and then you will need a professional to fix it.
It is best to replace the needle after every 5 hours of sewing or in every other project to improve the stitches and get finer results. Read on to find out how to go about this task;
You have to choose the size of your needle according to the fabric first. Needles come in different sizes; the smaller the number of needles, the more delicate the corresponding fabric for which it is used. You can determine the size of the needle by looking at the end that is inserted into the machine.
To replace an old needle with the new one, hold the needle with your left hand, and use your right hand to undo the screw at the top. Holding the needle is necessary; otherwise, it will drop inside the machine. There are different tools available for opening the screw, or you can simply use a screwdriver that came with your machine.
Once the screw is loose, the grip of the needle clamp will also become loose. Then simply pull the needle downwards and tuck it away from the needle clamp. Depending on the type of your sewing machine, the knob or clamp that is holding the needle may be on the left or the right side of the sewing machine.
Position the needle in a way that the flattened part of the needle points up towards the clamp, and the pointed part points down towards the base of the machine. Now push it up inside the clamp as far as it can go. Hold the needle in place with your fingers. Use the screwdriver or any tool of your choice to tighten the screw of the clamp.
Make sure to tighten the screw to avoid trouble while sewing properly. The tighter it is, the better because the loose grip on the needle can affect the stitches, and the needle will end up stuck inside the fabric. Put the thread on the new needle from front to back. There you have it! The needle is all set in the machine for sewing.
It is important to switch off the machine before changing the needle. Secondly, before you can hold it and undo the screw, you may need to turn the handwheel, the large wheel at the side of the machine to raise the needle to its highest position.
This step depended upon the model and was built on your machine. The newer versions of sewing machines do not require turning the wheel while some older versions still have a wheel at one side of the machine that moves the needle up and down.
Discard the old needle if it is dull and damaged. If you are simply trying to replace a needle for a certain fabric, then choose the regular needle for cotton and linen, the small needle for satin and silk, and the sharpest needle with a high number for leather and denim.