I’ve got a fair collection of Wonder Clips or craft clips (Wonder Clips are the Clover brand) I use them to hold binding into place when I’m doing mini quilts, fold back areas of fabric when doing hand embroidery and to hold the fabric to papers when doing hexies but it wasn’t until I heard someone in a Facebook forum say she uses regularly instead of pins in her sewing that I thought that sounds like a great idea and I should try it too. Over the weekend I was making a softie that was very bulky. I used clips on the inside of him to hold his limbs out of the seam lines. Instead of pinning around the edge I decided to try clips instead. Oh what a difference it made. I didn’t have the worry about which direction I placed the pins so I could remove them easily, I could concentrate on my sewing and not worry about hidden pins that may go under the needle as I could see the clips. After I had stitched around the outside I removed the clips that were securing the limbs via the turning gap then turned out the toy, this was so much easier than having to poke around trying to remove a pin from the inside or trying to turn out the toy with the pin still in place. Another good thing was no bent pins. I have many a banana shaped pin that has protested about being put through so many layers of a softie or bag. Now in future I will clip first pin second.
You can find Wonder Clips or the generic version of them in the quilting notions section in most sewing shops. There are a heap of online places and ebay that sells them too. There are even some for knitting (which I have a set of) They are a longer clip. In the above picture the purple ones are the knitting ones.
Cassiy