I'm a "pinner" too. I guess I spent too many years making clothing, but I just can't feel good about sending pieces under the needle without pinning. That said, I also ALWAYS remove pins before they get close to the needle. I hit a pin once and really screwed up my machine. Expensive lesson learned. I'm right handed and make sure that I pin with the pin heads to the right so that I can just slip them out as I go. I keep a pretty large pincushion on the right side of my machine too.