A few years ago I discovered this type of safety pin - a coilless (or, coil less!!) one. It's about 2 1/4" long and doesn't have that 'bit at the end' where you always get the threads either caught or on the 'wrong side'!!!
I now cannot tat without them!!! I'll show you why and what I use them for.
Firstly I use them to hold bits and pieces!!! These are the small centres of motifs, tiny butterflies and anything which might otherwise get lost down the side of the chair.
Secondly I use them to make a very small picot space. It's not really a gauge but it's sometimes useful just to 'mark the place' of a vsp (very small picot) which might otherwise lose itself!! Sometimes they do that if you put a vsp at the base of a chain or even sometimes when working block tatting.
Thirdly I use it to 'hold' beads on a very long picot. It leaves enough of a space at the end to enable a join (later) which is very useful. In the 'To Bee or Not to Bee' pattern which I taught at Palmetto it not only held the beads at the end of the first very long picot in the tail - it also held all the others too. This meant that I only needed one 'holder' for the entire tail - fewer safety pins/paperclips to get muddled up!!!
Finally I use it for this trick. It's a neater way of making the first split ring after a ring (when CTM can't be ued) - OR of adding in a 3rd shuttle like when making Millie and Carrrter which were two patterns I taught at Palmetto tat days!!
You add the second thread whilst working the first ring. Just put the safety pin on the end of shuttle 2, hold both shuttles together and work a few doubles to cover both the ends. (See below). Now, of course, you can do this without the safety pin but I used to pull that short end out time after time by mistake.
When you're ready to start the second side of the following SR you can pull the shuttle up so that the safety pin lies next to the ring. Don't take it off until you've worked the SR and then tug it before cutting and the end will hide itself in the ring.
PS you can buy these in the USA - here's a link. http://tinyurl.com/y8vpsy2
I ordered mine online in the UK.