Quilt Pins & Needles

I put damaged pins/needles into a plastic or metal candy/breath mint container so I do not have to put them directly into the garbage where someone could stick themselves.

When I need help holding the corners of strips or squares while piecing a quilt together. I use a wooden skewer used for Kabobs .They are inexpensive and come in handy while feeding those pesky corners into the sewing machine .

Use a dental pic tool to help hold your material as it goes thru your macine. It helps to keep material in place while in line and keeps your fingers out of the way, pluse it is not in your way to see where you are going.

If you like to hand sew while travelling, thread up several needles before you leave and put them on the back of a larger refrigerator magnet (I have one about the size of a post card); then, take thin magnetic strips and lay this onto the refrigerator magnet over the threads to keep them from coming out of the needle or getting tangled while travelling and they are easy to release without loosing any.

If you have any broken needles or bent pins to thow away ,use a medicine bottle with hole in the top.A Tic Tac container or any fliptop container works well.

When pining my quilt top, backing & batting, I sometimes find that the regular quilt pins are not strong enough for moving the quilt.

I use the long corsage pins! These are longer than normal quilting pins & have a larger head to help with my arthirtis hands remove them easily!

Try them - you will love them!

In order to lessen the possibility of knocking over my box of pins (which I used to do with regularity) I use a magnet on the base of my machine. That makes it possible to only have a few pins instead of the whole box, and they will always be right where I need them.

When I make a quilt that is not square, I sometimes can't figure out which way it goes on the bed. So I put a safety pin on the back of the quilt in the bottom left corner, and leave it there. When it's time to lay the quilt on the bed, all I have to do is find the safety pin and I know which way it goes.

Items needed:

Lid from a water bottle, or soda bottle.

Drill to put hole in middle of lid

Elastic- enough to slip a finger through to wear as a ring,  and tie in a knot inside of the cap.

Small piece of batting, and small piece of fabric to go over top.

Hot glue gun.

Drill a hole in the lid.  Put the elastic in through the hole tie the ends.  Stuff the inside of the hole with batting and a little more over the top of the inside of the lid.  Next put your fabric piece on top.  Hot glue in place.  Now stick your finger through the elastic and you have a finger pin cushion with pins at your fingertips.

Take your stright pin, quilting pins and run them throught your hair and they slide throught your material you are pinning alot easier.

Carol of Maryland