I also long arm and have never had trouble with batiks--if the front and back are batik, I do loosen the quilt on the frame a tad, but never have broken a needle on it! I do like to use a poly thread on batik, like SoFine #50 or Glide or Magnifico, just because I think the all cotton thread tends not to "slide" as well in the batik. Good luck--I love batiks and sounds like you might too!