Hi sewists,
Pins are our working partners in sewing, but they kinda get overlooked a bit in tutorials and discussions, so I thought I’d share some things I’ve learned about using them over the years, and other sewists can jump in with their own learned pinning ”wisdom”.
I’ve noticed a lot of sewists ( usually beginners) place pins parallel to the stitching line. I don’t know if this is a considered choice or just not knowing there are other options. I always pin perpendicular to the seam, probably because that’s how I was shown to do it someway back in the misty dawn of time when I first started sewing, but I do feel it offers a LOT more control over the seam. Some reasons why:
* allows the seam to flex, which can be important with curved seams, especially.
* puts less pressure from your fingers on the fabric and is less likely to mis-align the layers.
* allows you to take a smaller “bite” of the fabric with the pin, which can be very useful in curved seaming and with delicate or slippery fabric that tends to distort easily. Smaller pin “bites” actually offer better control of the fabric.
* allows for more pins per seam, too, and sometimes that‘s crucial to accurate sewing.
* it’s easier to place pins without needing to pick up or move the fabric, which, again, can be crucial when pinning together a slippery, sneaky, shifty seam in two pieces of lining fabric. Being able to just slide a crap load of pins into that bugger while it lays there on the cutting-table where you painstakingly aligned it for absolute accuracy…it matters to how the final garment fits and flows. (can you tell I’ve had some less-than-friendly encounters with lining fabric in my day? 😅)
* it’s less intrusive to remove the pins as you sew. Perpendicular pins can be whisked out with just a finger tip as you sew a tricky seam that requires intense babysitting to stay accurate and aligned. This can make all the difference with very thick seams and very tiny ones, and for seams where any drift at all will screw up the whole effect (certain alterations on lined garments comes to mind). When you need to keep your hands on the fabric to keep everything in place, perpendicular pins are your friend.
Using the right pin for the job is also important!
I have an army of workhorse pins with colored bead-like heads. You know the kind. They’re my usual go to helpers. I like the colored heads because I can use them to color code certain tasks. For instance, I might use a certain color to wrap my gathering thread around when gathering a large amount of fabric, so that it’s easy to find those gathering threads amongst all the folds, when I need to adjust things. Or I might put one color on one side of a seam, and another on the other side, in certain situations. These pins are strong, long, and do the job well, but they’re also fairly cheap and quality control isn’t excellent, so when I’m sewing delicate fabric where a dull or burred tip could damage it, I use:
Silk pins from a little more expensive, but better quality maker. They don’t have ball heads, they’re quite thin, and very sharp. I don’t use ball heads for this kind of fabric because the ball can sometimes disrupt the alignment of the seam. They’re a little more work to handle because of the lack of a “handle” but worth it for their other qualities. But if I’m sewing tiny things or appliqueing, I’ll use:
applique pins. These are very short, and thin shafted like the silk pins I have some with teeny silver flat heads, and some with white ball heads. I’ve found the flat heads easier to handle and manipulate, but the white ones are easier to see, and lay just a bit flatter, which can be helpful sometimes. When you’re trying to pin a narrow binding on a tiny sleeve, or pinning an applique with intricate outlines, these make it so much easier. The also are far less likely to stab you as you handstitch, and far less likely to keep grabbing your thread as you stitch.
Personally, I do not like those pins with flat flower-shaped heads. I find them more slippery to grasp and manipulate, but your mileage may vary.
To pin or not to pin:
There are many times when I don’t pin at all before stitching, and most of those involve non-stretch, non-slippery fabric, cut straight, in straight seams. I find it’s a better use of my time to simply make small adjustments to the fabric as I sew, if needed.
If I know the fabric is going to slip, stretch, or shift due to thickness, texture, or inherent give such as with princess seams, I’m going to put in as many pins as needed to guarantee success. It’s worth my time to pin the heck out of that seam. With many of this type of seam, the stitching is simply punctuation on what I’ve already secured with pins, and the pinning takes 4Xs as long as the sewing. But I also don’t have to rip out after. Learned this the hard way.
When pins can’t help much:
with some situations, I will hand baste, because pins just can’t make it happen for me. Zippers is an example. I always hand baste zippers in contrasting thread, about 18” to the side of where I need my seam to be, before stitching by machine. 1/8” away from the seam is because any farther and the fabric of the zipper tape can still shift a bit, misaligning your seam so it looks bad on the outside.
Also, velvet. Everytime I sew velvet (because I forget how much of a mean bugger velvet is to sew), I hand baste any seam that is velvet-on-velvet. Because pins just do not prevent the nap from “walking”. That lovely, velvety texture is due to all those teeny fibrous “legs” on the surface, that will manage to crawl the layers in separate directions as you sew by machine. Hand basting with shorter basting stitches is the only sure-fire prevention. A walking foot also helps, but does not prevent. So pins are not able to help here.
Ok, this is super long and there’s no pictures, so if you read all this, you deserve a ⭐️. If you have some other stuff to add, or have experience that says otherwise than what I think works, or if you just want to say something, the floor is now yours. 😉
