Your needle alignment is NOT broken - Singer Quantum Stylist 9960

While working on a project, I was doing something dodgy like trying to sew one million layers of fabric using an ancient needle. Not sure when the last time I cleaned my machine was. This resulted in the machine skipping and all the thread tangling up.

No worries, I untangled it all, cleaned up a bit, changed the needle, and so I was back on track. Only I wasn't: when I turned the machine back on, the needle would not align.

Things I tried that didn't work:

• Turning it off and on again.
• Changing the stitch setting
• Worrying I broke the machine
• Reading every manual on the internet
• Watching every YouTube repair video where they take half the sewing machine apart and put it back together

The first time this happened, I decided to call it a day. Next day I set up the machine again, and was surprised to see everything worked.

Theory: it was definitely overheating.
Reality: it was overheating of my brain.

The second time this happened, I figured out what the actual problem was:
The needle's position was too low.

How? As I was manually moving the needle to slowly untangle things, I did not put the needle back to the top-most position.

🪡 If the needle is too low, the machine will not change the alignment.

This is presumably a protection mechanism, so that you don't change alignment while the needle is close to the foot, or through fabric.

⬆️ Takeaway 1: always set the needle to the top-most position.

Isn't this sewing machine 101? Maybe. Sometimes when using a digital sewing machine, it offers automations that you take for granted (e.g. the Singer Quantum Stylist 9960 has a ✂️ button that will reset the needle position and cut the thread for you).

🧠 Takeaway 2: just because you have a fancy machine, doesn't mean you can forget the basics.