Try Our Designs

June 21, 2008.

Well, here is my first impressions on the new Babylock 12 needle machine.  Some of these may change as I get more time to play on the machine, but with about 2 hours of play on it last night here is what I found.

 1.  It is taking me a bit of time to get used to the fact that there is not a needle in the center of the needle holder like there is in the Babylock 7 needle machine.  So, when I am trying to work in a particular area, I am not hitting the mark as accurately as I was able to with the 7 needle machine.

 2.  The 12 needle machine has a yarn feeder that allows yarn to flow from a spool (or in my case, feeding from a center pull skein) into the center of the 12 needles.  The yarn is fed into the top of the machine from a spool holder on the back of the machine.  Loading the yarn was a breeze using a little skewer type tool that is provided.  I did find that the needles needed to be in the up position, though, for it to work properly.  That is probably mentioned in the little book that came with it, but of course, I have not read that yet.  My first yarn that I tried was some YLI Candlelight.  It fed through without any problems, and as long as I continually moved forward, it laid down the Candlelight without a problem.  I did have to cut the Candlelight when I had laid down what I wanted and then go back over it with the 12 needles to really secure it.  But, Candlelight is a bit difficult to secure, so that was not a real surprise.

  Next, I tried some novelty yarns, ones with more than one ply and with the plys being of different thicknesses.  If the novelty yarn was tightly plied, then it did a fair job of laying down the yarns.  If the novelty yarns were fuzzy or were not tightly plied, then the yarn got tangled in the 12 needles and I got quickly frustrated.  I had to remove the new needle cover (this is a new feature which is similar to the needle cover on the Janome machines.)  After getting the yarn stuck about 3-4 times, I decided that I would just leave that part off.  I do think that if you had children using the machine, this guard would be an asset.  But, I have been working on the 7 needle machine without one, and think my guard will go into the little storage area, at least as I experiment with yarns and ribbons using the new yarn port and the ribbon guide.  After that, I may try it again.

  When I got fuzzy yarn caught in the needles and the needle guard, I had quite a time getting it out.  I had to remove the needles and then cut away small pieces of the yarn that had gotten felted above and below the needle guard.  With the 12 small holes, it did take a while to get the birds nest removed. 

3.  But, even with this, I did not break a single needle.  I did find that using the same technique for changing needles on my 7 needle machine worked very well on the 12 needle machine.  I had really been concerned about whether I was going to be breaking lots more needles, particularly as I was having these nesting problems.  But, the extra needles seem to help with lining up the needle holder when it was being reattached.

 4.  I do have some fear about breaking the 12 needle guard (the clear plastic part with the 12 holes for needles and one hole for yarn, particularly as I play more with the yarn port and ribbon guide.  So, I think I will have my dealer order one of these for me.  The replacement part for the 7 needle machine (which I have broken once) only costs about $13.00, so I think having a spare is a good idea.
Here is a more detailed explanation of what the needle guide is.   With the Babylock 7 needle machine, there is a clear guard that both keeps the fibers down as the needles pass over them and also has the 7 holes that the needles pass through.  When you have to change a needle, this is the part that you use to line the needles up.
    On the 12 needle machine, there is one added possibility of a problem that does not exist with the 7 needle machine. The 12 needle machine has the same kind of clear guard but instead of just having 12 holes for the needles, it has a 13th hole in the center. It also has something called a "yarn port" that let's you feed yarn down into the center of the 12 needles through the 13th hole.
    What I found is that as long as I used a simple yarn without fuzzies, or multiple fibers plied together, the yarn port fed the yarn just fine. But, when there were different kinds of fibers in the yarn that I fed through the yarn post, then the embellisher had a tendency to "felt" the yarn together on both sides of the needle guard. In other words, it is like getting a bird's nest on your sewing machine where there is thread above and below the throat plate. With a sewing machine, there is usually only one hole and the throat plate is made of metal and comes off by loosening a couple of screws.
     With the 12 needle embellisher, the bird's nest forms on the top and the bottom of the needle guard where the 12 needle holes are. Well, this piece is made of plastic and it is hard to remove and even harder to get lined up again if you have to replace it.....How do I know? Because I have broken the needle guard on my 7 needle embellisher and it took me quite a while to get the needle guard lined back up perfectly so that the needles would go through.
     I just think, at least at this time, that if I am going to use novelty or fuzzy yarns, I am going to think hard before using them through the yarn port. I may use them through the ribbon guide, but I haven't spent that much time with the ribbon guide yet.

 5.  It is going to take me a while to realize that 12 needles put in lots more holes than the 5 or 7 needle machines, so I have needled my first pieces much more than necessary, and I am ending up with lots of extra unwanted holes.  I think that this is something that I will be able to work through with time and I do expect that when I am using roving to make felt, this will be an attribute that I will really expect.

 6.  I did work with felting some very fine layers of silk roving into commercial felt.  I was really pleased with the results of that effort.  Having the 12 needles and the wider cover area helped keep the very light coverage to stay in place. 

7.  I also worked on felting some commercial felt from the front and the back to see the difference in the effect.  I found that there was very little difference between the 7 needle and the 12 needle machine when working with a large piece of felt that is being attached to the foundation felt, but because the width of the 12 needles is much wider than the 7 needle machine, I had a lot more needle holes on the outside of the flower that I was attaching.

 So, that is my experience so far with the new machine.  I will be working more on it during the next week and posting my experiences for those of you who are interested.  I am also taking photos, and will try to get this info with photos posted to my blog in the next few days.

 For those of you who are interested, I hope this will help some with your decision about whether to get a 12 needle machine.