Pins: Tips and Tricks?

Dear users, dear authors,
Do you have any tips and tricks on the topic of pins?

My personal tips on sewing pins:

• Absolutely indispensable for pinning parts together on amigurumi. They hold everything in place so you can sew without any hassle
• They’re also great for blocking shawls (if you don’t have professional comb pins)
• A piece of magnetic tape is perfect for storage (cut from magnetic whiteboard film—available at hardware stores). Here they stand in neat rows, and you’ll hardly ever prick yourself while looking for one :-)
• After years of fumbling around, I finally discovered that there are special “doll needles” (that’s what they’re called!). They’re very long (10 cm and up) and are great for embroidering the mouth, nose, eyes, etc.
  

Not all pins are created equal. Regular ones work fine for pinning a seam. But especially when stretching fabric, I like to use higher-quality ones. They’re 5 cm long, made of stainless steel, and have a larger plastic head. 

You always need pins. Right now, I’m using “regular” pins with larger “heads”—they’re 4 cm long.
But the pins that used to be common, with the tiny glass heads (which aren’t always available), I like to use as eyes for smaller amigurumi. Just snip off a little bit and glue them into the stitch. But they’re often white; I need black or dark blue ones.

With such small figures, you can’t always use those safety eyes with a washer.

I also often use these doll needles for “larger” crocheted dolls—they make it easier to reach the spots for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

I only need pins when I’m sewing, because I don’t baste, and I only use them to secure the fabric at the beginning. Back when I sewed professionally, we didn’t even have pins—we managed just fine without them and got the job done quickly. Not exactly at piece-rate speed, but we got through it efficiently.