As in “old habits die hard.” On my current sewing project, pins don’t work with the fabric so I’m using these wonderful Wonder Clips instead and they have their happy little home right next to my pincushion. I turned to look at the end of sewing a seam and found a pile of the Wonder Clips right where I placed them after removal, without thinking, without looking, just sewing along on autopilot.

Yeah, not exactly where they belong, but close:

Incidentally, because these clips don’t naturally stand at the ready like pins in a pincushion, I find it’s helpful to stage them like this before use:

And even though they are mostly made of plastic, when I drop them I can still use my handy extending magnetic pin retriever to retrieve them from the floor due to the steel in their little springs:

You notice it’s when and not if I drop them. Every sewing enthusiast needs one of these telescoping magnets for retrieving errant pins, needles, machine screws, bobbins, etc.

Ooh, and if you happened to notice that little bent awl from Clover in the first photo above, there’s another fine sewing gadget you could live without, but once you have it, you will think you just can’t live without it and will order up a spare just in case it wanders…like my thoughts.