Needles, needles, needles, what to do?

Are you like me and you have a collection of needles that just confuses you?  Or does one type of needle meet all of your needs.  The more different threads I collect the more needles I seem to collect.  This company says to use this needle for their thread and this other company says to use their needles for their threads.  And then there are the sewing machine companies.  To top things off, even though all these different people tell you to use such and such a needle, it doesn't always work.  Either the hole is too big, the thread breaks, or in my case this week, the machine skips stitches.  Of course, they all tell you to change the needle. 

I would love to hear your needle stories.  Here is mine.

The block of the month was so fun this month I decided to make a quilt for myself.  You may remember.

At the meeting when I showed it as they were picking the winner for the blocks, they asked if I would donate it to our 4th of July Great Little Quilt Sale (which was in three days).  Thinking it would never happen, I said I would if they picked my number.  Well, you guessed it!  They picked my number and I donated my quilt.
So I made the blocks into this wall quilt or table runner for my daughter.  I hope you like it Katrina!

Now, for the rest of the story.  As I am beginning to quilt this thing, I think easy.  I'll just use this red, white, and blue variegated that I have from YLI and quilt stars.  This should be fast.  Right?  Wrong!  I struggled with the quilting because my machine (my treasured and sometimes frustrating new Bernina 820) kept skipping stitches.  I change needles a few times and just struggled through.  Then I ran out of thread.  How ridiculous!  The quilt is small and I thought I had plenty of thread.  I called two quilt stores and finally found a King Tut thread that I thought would work.  Yesterday I decided to try the one in town and check for myself to see if they indeed did not have the thread.  There it was!  Maybe she didn't know what red, white, and blue variegated was.  So I go to the other store and tell them thank you but I found the thread and then spend almost $30 on fabric!  They made out better than if I had just bought the thread.

I finished the quilt this morning (I tried to finish the binding last night but the movie I thought I would watch, was in French!).  I decided to try yet another needle (Bernina 90/14).  Perfect quilting.  Not one stitch skipped.  Now I need more Bernina needles. I now wonder if anyone has read this long story all the way to the end!

The point to the story is to spend your money on more needles. do not give up and when you are done, give it away so you don't have to remember the struggles you went through!