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Felting Needles and the Babylock Embellisher, Fab Felter, Pfaff Smart 350, Huskystar ER-10 and Bernina Needle Punch Attachment

Even though I use a Babylock Embellisher for much of my needle felting, there is almost always the need to add some detail needling to most everything that I make. I have also found that I really enjoy doing some needle felting by hand. So, I knew that I needed to add felting needles to this website. Felting needles are sized like wire. The higher the number of the needle, the thinner the needle.

When felting by hand, I use 36 needles for coarse felting, 38 needles for most of my felting by hand, and 40 or 42 needles for detail felting whether it is something that I started needle felting by hand or using my Embellisher.

Also, because of the high cost of replacement needles for the Babylock Embellisher, I replace my needles with size 38, 40 or 42 needles. I have confirmed that the Babylock needles are size 40. I have found, though, that I prefer the size 40 and 42 needles when I am making felt from roving because it does not leave the large holes that the Babylock needles leave. I cut the tops off of the hand needles using a Dremel Rotary tool and a metal cutting blade. Using needles that have been cut offers great savings over buying needles from the dealers. I also like that I have the ability to use different size needles depending on the project that I am working on. I cannot warrantee the use of these needles, but I have had no problems with them.

I also have customers who have used these needles in the Fab Felter, Huskystar ER-10, Pfaff Smart 350 and in the Bernina Needle Punch attachment without any problems.

What size needles should I use in my needle punch machine?

For most basic work, I suggest that you use size 40 needles. They work well with roving, with embellishing fabric with yarn and ribbons and other fibers and reasonable weight fabrics. Size 40 needles work great with foundation fabrics such as denim, microfiber suede, silk dupioni, cottons, etc. Size 40 Triangular Close Barb needles have more barbs on each edge than the regular Size 40 triangular needles. When I am making felt, I really like using the Close Barb needles because they seem to make the process faster. I often use them as my normal needle because I have not found that there is any down side in using them in other situations where size 40 needles work well.

I love working with silks and when I started to work with china silk, I broke more needles in about 5 minutes than I had broken in the 5 months prior. China silk (also called silk habotai) is a very tightly woven silk fabric. The size 40 needles were getting stuck in the fabric and breaking. So, I changed all of my needles to size 42 needles and found that I no longer broke needles. So, I use size 42 needles with tightly woven silks.

If you decide to needle punch into foundation fabrics like upholstery fabric that is very heavy, you might want to use size 38 needles. They are thicker and stronger than the size 40 needles. You can use either size 38 triangular or size 38 STAR needles. Star needles have 4 edges with barbs and are said to be the strongest needle design by the needle manufacturer. They also are good to use when you are punching through felt that is thicker than that which we normally purchase.

Do I change needles only when they break?

Well, breaking a needle is surely a good reason to change it. But, if you use a set of needles for quite a while, they will become worn and less effective just as the needle in your sewing machine needles to be replaced periodically even if it does not break. When you seem to be working hard at a project and are nto making good progress, that is a time to seriously think about changing your needles.

You are now selling different kinds of needles. How do I know which ones to buy?

We have been selling triangular needles for some time now. We have just added star needles. Where triangular needles have barbs on 3 sides, star needles have barbs on 4 sides. This means that you will be more efficient when making fabric or embellishing or texturizing fabrics since 4 barbs will be working for you. The company that manufactures them also says that the design of the needles blade section makes it more difficult to break than the normal triangular needles. So, you might want to try the star needles to increase the speed of felting when working on roving or other fibers that take a while to felt or when you are having a difficult time with breaking needles. I have been very happy using them and thought that some of you might like them too.