Needle in Backwards?

I often find that customers will bring their sewing machines in complaining that the stitch is terrible, or that the machine will not sew at all. Regardless of whether or not they want a service, or are just looking for a quick check, I find that quite a few people have managed to put their needle in backwards. How do they do it? I don’t know how they do it, because it takes quite a bit of effort to put a needle in backwards. If you are having a problem with your sewing machine, before doing anything else, please check that your needle is in correctly.

2 easy ways to tell:

• The flat part of the needle shank faces backwards.
• The groove in the needle faces forwards.

Some machines require needles that are inserted sideways, and if you have one of these machines, the only thing I can recommend is looking at your owners manual, because some machines will have left facing needles and others are right facing needles.

For more information about sewing machine needles, you may want to take a look at one of my first blog posts, Sewing Machine Needles.