HOW TO PIN FOR PERFECT POINTS IN QUILTS AND QUILTED PRODUCTS.

So you have lovingly made your quilt blocks... you have carefully chosen your fabrics, procrastinated over colour choices and worked out the best layout for your design. Now comes the time that a lot of us fear. The sewing together of the quilt blocks. While we worry about the sashings, bindings , batting/ wadding and backing of our projects ( we will have blogs about all these issues later on ) , there is another technical issue that needs to be addressed..... getting perfect points and aligning of satin stitching . For example.... 1.the point of a geometrical shaped piece to a seam allowance ( border)... you don't want the tip of the point being swallowed up by the border/seam. 2. two geometrical shaped pieces meeting together at their points... you don't want the points to not meet each other exactly. 3.the diagonal lines of geometrical shaped pieces within the design not lining up straight. 4.Aligning satin stitch also present problems when two blocks are joined and the satin stitching doesn't come together exactly. All these issues can be rectified easily by taking care when pinning the blocks together. Getting the pinning right from the start takes a bit of time but its time worth taking because it saves on having to pull apart misaligned stitches and points. There are quite a few different ways to pin and everyone has their favourite. The following method uses a 'positioning' pin.

1. Hold the two blocks 'right' side together
2. With the 'positioning' pin push it from the 'wrong' side straight through the exact tip of the point that you are wanting to match up. Always check by looking under at the right side that the pin has indeed come through straight and not at an angle.
3. Then continue pushing the 'positioning 'pin through the 'right' side of the other block, through the corresponding point. Once again check on the other side, the 'wrong' side this time to make sure the pin has come through straight and not on an angle.
4. Its important at this stage to keep the pin straight through the two blocks.
5. While you have this 'positioning 'pin in place , you then use another pin to secure the fabric ready for sewing together.
6. This is done by pushing the second pin on an angle through the two blocks. Insert this pin making sure that the pin comes up through the fabric at the exact point of the 'positioning 'pin. This second pin will now hold the fabric together with the points held together perfectly.
7. Continue pinning as usual
8. Sew together

This method of using the 'positioning' pin doesn't necessarily guarantee perfect points and nice aligned satin stitching. All the steps leading up to this stage are equally important. If the pieces are poorly cut, sewn , trimmed or even pressed badly, then the final stage of pinning the pieces together and sewing will always be difficult to attain a perfect result.