I must be weird. I don't use anything. Except for when I reach the corners on the back side and I am hand stitching. Then I pin the corner the way I want it to fold and pin a bit before and a bit after. But I am hand sewing the back binding. When I am machine stitching the front of the quilt binding I just make sure that it is long enough to go around with extra to spare and start out. I always have left overs of binding.