You might be wondering I just bought this sewing machine through our store or somewhere else and how do I buy needles for my sewing machine? What size should I get? It is important to buy a machine with an operating manual to help you with this question and many others that could arise. Most standard sewing machines will take a number 11 size needle if you are using an American machine and a number 12 size if using an European machine.

There are some fabrics, however, that need a special needle to sew with but about 80% of fabrics on the market today will work with these size needles. If you are using a different type of fabric and you are not sure you have the right size needle than it would be good to check your sewing machine’s operating manual. This will also help you when you want to make an unique stitch using your machine, as this could need a different needle size as well.

Moral of the story is that you probably can’t go wrong having the sizes mentioned above in your sewing kit but you should always check the operating manual if you are unsure.

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Now that you have the basic sewing kit that you need, we will go through how to fix tears and snags in your clothing. The basic tear is easily fixed and you begin to do so by threading your needle. To thread your needle, you will want to take thread that matches the color of the piece of clothing you are mending and place it through the eye of a needle of your choice. The eye of the needle is the very small hole at the top of the needle.

Next, after the needle is threaded, you then want to even out the two sides of the thread and tie a small knot at the end of the two pieces of thread. Once that is done, turn the piece of clothing you are mending inside out and begin to sew it. To do so you will place the needle toward the end of the tear or snag pulling together the clothing sides near the tear as tight as you can that will look natural, and place your first stitch. Then you will want to come the opposite way than your original stitch and continue to go in and out and until the snag is covered up and mended. Each stitch should be about 1/4 inch. Once done with that you will cut the thread leaving enough to tie it off so it will not unravel.

Tie it off and you are done. To tie it off you will take the two pieces of thread and tie a small knot with them (big enough to keep the stiches from unraveling).  Congratulations as you have completed your first sewing job. To watch a video on this please visit this sewing tips video. 

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