Anita Ellis
Everyone is different in their needs and I am going to discuss the things that I believe a machine quilter and patchworker gets good value from in their everyday work.
Needles for machine quilting
These needles have quite specific properties: sharp and smooth to get though many layers, strong to reduce needle deflection when you are pulling your quilt in all directions, and with an eye appropriate to the thread you are using. The size of the eye, i.e. the size of the needle, should be chosen to match your thread. The finer the thread, the smaller the needle and the thicker the thread, the bigger the needle. With a 40-weight thread such as Glide, I use a 90/14 top stitch/quilting needle. If I were using a finer thread, I would go down to an 80/12 size. Experiment to see what suits your particular quilt and thread choice.
I often hear that you should replace your needle
