To pin or not to pin!

[J3Piper]

First, any tool (like the curved quilters' safety pins) has advantages and limitations.

Fort those who don't quilt, the newer versions don't rust and are long and extremely sharp. They are designed to go through multiple thicknesses of fabric (the quilt top, a batting of varying thickness, and the quilt backing) over the entire surface of up to a 120" by 120" "quilt sandwich" as it is either hand or machine quilted. Quilts that are machine quilted must be moved through the harp (the open space between the needle and the pillar of the sewing machine) and rolled up as you stitch. So the advantage of using safety pines is you place the quilt's three layers on a flat surface, stretch it smooth with no wrinkles, and pin, pin, pin. The pins (for the most part) stay in place through the machine sewing process unless they are in the way of the presser foot. All the remaining safety pins are removed at one time AFTER the machine quilting is completed. Long-arm quilting machines have the quilt sandwich on large tensioned rollers and do not need to be pinned throughout. The machine head itself is what's moved over the surface of the quilt as it sews. This is free-motion stitching with no feed dog teeth involved. Kind of like machine darning on steroids. <grin>

The alternative is to pinpin pin and then baste by hand like crazy. This means every basting stitch that would be crossed by a line of machine quilting must be removed before it is sewn over, for sanity's sake.

The biggest disadvantage of a safety pin is you can NOT (or at least I can not) remove it one-handed while sewing a seam. I've never tried them in clothing for that reason.... but provided you were careful not to snag them and poked the point between the weave instead of splitting the fibers, they would be a great advantage if you had to stop and start a project repeatedly after putting it away on a daily basis.

Just my tiny two cents worth.

[Friday]

The biggest disadvantage of a safety pin is you can NOT (or at least I can not) remove it one-handed while sewing a seam. I've never tried them in clothing for that reason....

Just my tiny two cents worth.

When I have used them it has been just for an individual pleat and then I do not close the safety pin. This makes it fairly easy to remove.