I don't use the thread cutter often, because usually I make leader and ender pieces when I stop at the end of chain piecing. When I do use the thread cutter, I find the tails are too short to hold by hand and too long not to make a loop or two underneath, so I begin the next stitching on my "spider" (scrap piece sewn over a gazillion times). The spider doesn't have to be large to work. The one I'm using now is a strip only about a half inch wide, I think it was the "binding" around the armhole of a sleeveless top or something, lol. That's enough width to contain that little problem.