Just a caution about your sewing machine needles. We are seeing quite a few machines coming in with problems caused by a budget brand of needles being sold at some department stores. These needles are made so poorly that they will actually cause your machine to not sew properly.

To demonstrate – the needle on the left is a Schmetz brand needle size 80 and on the right is the department store needle size 70. This size needle should be finer than the Schmetz, and as you can see, not only is it thicker, but it’s also longer! Other needles in the same department-store-pack are made backwards or are bent. Consumers are purchasing these needles in good faith, and then spending hours trying to find the cause of their sewing machine problem, all the while certain that it can’t be their machine needle because it’s a brand-new pack. And the worst part about this is that newbies to sewing, who are keen to get involved in this hobby that we all love so much, think that the problems that they are experiencing are caused by them doing something wrong, and with a hit to their confidence, they just give up.