Clips are what tac gear makers use to avoid sharps injuries!

 Holding fabric in place when sewing is very important and for 90% of the products I make, I've gotten good enough that I don't actually need to pin fabric together too often. With most of my pouches, I can just pinch the two panels between forefinger and thumb and off I go. I'll drop the needle of the machine through the fabric itself to hold things in place while I start a stitch but long gone are my days where I have to use boxes and boxes of pins in my day to day sewing.

That is until I have to do zip pouches. Now, zip pouches are not a line item. The reason they are not a line item is because they are complex and awkward to sew with more steps than I am happy to have any Tom, Dick or Harry turn up and order one from me. So if you are the sort of person that I will make a zip pouch for then you clearly have some sort angel status in my esteem. That or it's been so long since I've sewn one I've forgotten how much I hate doing them or, worse, I've got a big Nerf purchase planned and I need the money.

Anyway, with zip pouches, you have to secure the length of the gusset (the wall of the pouch) to the edges of the front and back panels to make it secure. With over 1m of fabric all the way around, you clearly can't do that by holding it with just your fingers. Normally, I would pin things in place but then I discovered clips. Firstly, I used full sized bulldog clips and then I discovered quilting clips.

 You can literally clamp fabric together with these and unlike bulldog clips, they won't damage the fabric if left on too long. Being smaller, they are more precise and work better on corners and in tight spots than bulldog clips.

The only advantage that pins have over clips is that you can sew over pins. They're small enough that they will fit under a stitch length and the machine will skip over them. Clips have to be removed stepwise as the fabric approaches the needle but a skilled machinist can guide the fabric with one hand, remove clips with one and use the foot pedal to advance the fabric as needed. It feels very Tokyo Drift when you get up to speed over a long stitch.

I still hate zip pouches but these make it a slightly more pleasant experience. I don't get the needle stick injuries from the pins which my day job has taught me to be terrified of. Now all I need to do is learn to sew gussets on evenly. Or I could just design a large carriage pouch that doesn't have such a horrible constructions process...