I also use silk pins and have very good luck with them. I recommend them highly. :D

All of the hints everyone has given you are great. Sometimes when I am trying to match corners or whatever where I want it to be perfect, I do my best pinning tricks and then just sew 4 or 5 stitches across the intersection instead of the entire seam. Then I open it up to check it. As you said sometimes even with our best pinning, the blocks still shift. This way if it has shifted I only have those 4 or 5 stitches to remove. If it's perfect when I check, then I go back and sew up the rest of the seam. This is a trick I was taught back in the days of making our own clothes, but it surely helps in quilting too.

Hope I can explain this properly. Match up your seams by putting a pin right through both of the seams from top to bottom, once and leave it kinda dangling there....Then put a pin on either side of this, in the usual manner. By using that first pin and having it perpendicular to the fabric, you don't shift the seams by trying to put it down through the fabric. After you anchor with the two pins on either side of the one that's dangling there, you can remove that first pin and sew. It helps me.

That's the way I pin also. Thanks for explaining it. I can do it, but was at a loss for words.

euclid - my very over-worked seam ripper thanks you! I have never heard of this process, but you can bet I'm going to use it on those tricky matches going forward!

Renee

I swear by the Clover fork pins and my seams always match up. Sometimes the Clotilde catalogue has them on sale :-) and I stock up.

Are you nesting your seams? This should help. I pin from the edge of the fabric to the inside that way I can get the pin out before going over it with my machine needle.

I do exactly this, also, and I pin right through the seams with a fine pin to hold them together. I pin only at the seams, then line up the edges of the blocks in between the pins. Works for me!! I get very nice, tight, lined up corners nearly every time.

Yep that is Nesting ;)>

hehehe! I go through the same thing, it can be so frustrating, from now on it's "make my day" Love your humor!