I second a good seam ripper, sharp/thin pins and bent safety pins. Those are pretty obvious items that I use all the time. My other favorite notion is a good pair of fine point tweezers. I use it to pull threads tightly (when I am trimming) as well as pulling stray threads (when I've ripped seams out). I have only one pair so when I lose them in all my clutter and NEED them, I am searching frantically for them. I got mine in a quilt shop so they are not like eyebrow tweezers.