I just took a sewing machine repair class & there was a section on needles. "Stretch" needles are a ball point, "Woven" needles are a sharp point & "Universal" needles are in between. The sharp needles will give ya a perfect straight stitch when ya are sewing or quilting just a straight stitch but can break a thread of the fabric. The ball point needles will slip between the threads, sometimes multiple threads & that will give ya a bit of a not so straight stitch. The Universal needles aren't so sharp that they break threads & will slip between the threads but fewer than the ball point ones. They recommend that we use Universal needles for most things including FMQing.