A few years back these nifty little spring loaded clamps came out. They are marketed as clips to hold binding on while quilters sew it down. A couple benefits is that they don’t distort the fabric the way pins do and you’re not constantly stabbing the heck out of yourself.
I’ve come to use them for a bunch of different things – holding glued collage elements in place while they dry, as “paperclips” for large stacks of paper and of course for when I’m hand stitching.
I do a lot of textile collages and the stitch meditations I’ve been doing are small, 4″x4″. Aside from my talent of poking myself with pins when I try to use them, these small pieces turn nutty when you try to use pins on them. Distortion city. The binder clips are a great option.
Below you can see how I used them when I started working on a new meditation. I only clipped along one end since it’s so small I can hold the other edge with my hand as I work.
Once I had some stitching done in the middle of the piece, I removed the clips and finished the rest of the piece.
Just a little hack that I’ve found makes a huge difference in my stitching – both in how it looks and how much I enjoy doing it. I pick mine up from Amazon, these are the ones I have.
What about you? Do you have a favorite tip or hack for your hand stitching?
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