To get right to the point, stop fighting with blunt pins. They are a common, everyday sewing tool, but the humble pin can make an enormous difference to your sewing. Pins should be sharp and smooth to insert. Sadly, there are some very low-priced pins out there that are too thick and blunt, and this doesn’t just make them hard to slide in and out of your fabric – they will also stretch cotton fabrics, leaving a hole, or catch and drag individual fibres causing a pull to run through your fabric piece. These pins also have a tendency to corrode if left in your work for too long which makes them hard to remove, even more damaging to fabric, and worst of all, leave rust marks. Berry pins (with the little colourful round end) are a popular choice because they are easier to use, but if the berry is plastic then it will melt with an iron, or just pop off of the end of the pin, and the popular Flower Head pins with little flat plastic flowers or bows on the end, look lovely, but the purpose is to sit flat so if the flower is fat and lumpy then they don’t do their job.

All these points of quality taken into account, perhaps the best reason to use nice pins is that pinning is one of our least favourite tasks (proven by the fact that we so often try to sneak a seam without doing it). It makes sense to spend just a little bit more to get pins that make this job easier and more effective. Instead of a pack of 200 ordinary pins, purchase a nice pack of 100 quality pins, that are made for particular purpose and give you a more comfortable sewing result.