Pinking refers to the use of pinking shears to trim the raw edge of a piece of fabric. Pinking shears cut a jagged, sawtooth pattern into the fabric, which minimizes fabric fraying or unraveling during washing.
Why is this important? When fabrics unravel, you loose a bit of fabric that would otherwise be usable and oftentimes the unraveled threads get tangled. The tangled pieces can tug (especially in the washer and dryer) causing stretching and distortion of the fabric.
"Pinking" fabric number 6.
Many quilters use a special "wavy" or scalloped blade in their rotary cutter, which is much more efficient than using pinking shears. However, I find that I prefer pinking shears as I feel I have more control over them. It is easy to slip or lose concentration while using a rotary cutter and accidentally cut too much or in the wrong direction. This generally doesn't happen with pinking shears.
I started getting really nervous when I began removing the fabric number labels used to identify where I intend each fabric to fit into the bargello pattern. I didn't want to forget or mis-identify a fabric when I pulled it out of the dryer. It was a lot of work to get the color range set initially and I don't know if I could handle going through that type of headache again. I decided to skip ahead in the instructions a bit and make a fabric map using the slivers of fabric I am cutting off with the pinking shears, just to be safe. Now I feel sufficiently organized, which I am told is essential to the bargello quilt making process. After I square up the fabric for cutting, I will create another fabric map using larger scraps for later use.
My temporary fabric map.
