My local craft store sells little empty plastic bottles with tiny tips. They come in a package of 3, I think I paid less than $5 for the package. You could split the package with quilting friends. :D

I didn't pin initially but then got into a quilting group and one lady taught me to pin and she did such precise work that I decided to follow her example. I don't bother for little 3"ers but getting bigger than that, I do.

When I did my nine patch quilt, I pinned when the intersections weren't behaving. During the longer seams, I pinned every intersection without fail.

I just started another quilt, 2" hexies and I'm learning a new technique to machine sew them, so I have to pin right now to keep my points sharp. Once I get used to the flow of the technique, I'll probably stop pinning unless this is going to be that one quilt where I have to pin no matter what.

I'm good either way, if I have to pin, that's cool. If I don't have to pin, that's cool, too.

Never pin.

Thanks, Peckish. I didn't see this. I ordered some from Amazon. Got 30 for about 5 bucks.

I am a dedicated pinner. I think a big part of this is that I learned garment sewing first (in the 1980s), and pinning was standard there. I've seen plenty of videos of people feeding things through their sewing machines without pinning and getting good results, but I've tried it myself and not been entirely happy with the results. I really like having my intersections and points to "spot on", and I've found pins are a huge help here. At really critical points, I will put a pin through the exact point and will use the hand wheel to get the needle in the right spot before removing the pin.

I'm currently working on a project with small pieces, and I still pin - I'm joining 1.5" HSTs to 1.5" plain squares, and I will put two pins in them. I really like not having to worry about one piece sliding sideways relative to the other piece. With pins, I can focus on simply steering the fabric through with an accurate seam allowance, which is more enjoyable to me.

I even pin when piecing long strips together, since a regular foot is apt to feed the bottom piece of fabric a bit faster than the top one. I figure pinning will help prevent the strip set from getting bowed.

I make a point of placing my pins so that the tips are pointing to the left as I sew so that I can easily remove them with my right hand as they get close to the needle.

I've been meaning to try glue, but have not done so yet. I suspect I will enjoy it when I do.

You don't need the special tip unless you are creating a master quilt that wont be washed ( like Sharon Shamber). I use the regular glue tip and just use very fine dots or a line depending on the need. Be sure to keep the glue inside the seam allowance and everything works out great. And if some glue does seep where you don't want it to, it will come out in the wash. Well worth experimenting a little.
Give it a try on some bias scraps or 4Ps and see how it works.

I actually like pinning. I get nice, fine pins that work well, then I slow down and enjoy each step of the process.

Hi and thank you all for your responses to my pinning question. So interesting that the answers go from always pin to never pin to everything in between. After posting my question I decided to start pinning everything on the quilt I am am currently working on (though I hadn't pinned everything on this quilt up to this point). I have to say I am pleased with the results of how things are turning out after I decided to start pinning. Things are much less wonky and points are looking better. I admit it's a time consuming pain to pin everything but I believe I will continue because things just don't line up as I feel they should when I don't pin. I watch the videos for simple things like hsq's and it seems they never pin but everything seems to come out okay. Maybe my machine is just wonkier than most in the amount of fabric (top vs bottom it pulls) or maybe I'm doing something wrong. I don't know! Whatever, I guess I'll stick to pinning. :)

Mwahaha, welcome to the world of pinning. Find the style that works for you, I use the big long pins and I use a lot of them, but I'm pinned way down an inch or so from the edge and out of the way of the foot much less the needle. When I'm in the part of a quilt that requires a lot of small pieces put together, I often do that at my sewing group, or while watching tv with the hubby, and now his bowling league is getting used to me sitting in the background with my box of work.

But, when I'm doing long seams like borders, I do them with the help of my ironing board. Get everything all nice and flat either with or without help of the iron. I currently have my ironing board out in the living room as an effort to get in more steps into my daily life, but even otherwise I'd move out there if I'm dealing with a full top so that the couch could take up some of the weight of the fabric.