Any advice/tips would be appreciated. I have been running into a problem with my writing tips clogging when trying to outline my cookies with royal icing. I have tried everything - taking a pin and pushing through tip to make sure its not clogged, taking tip off and washing in hot water. Its making me nuts. To the point where I have been bypassing the tips all together and just snipping the end of pastry bag! problem is that doing this it isn't a perfectly round hole like the tip. thanks in advance from anyone with advice.

Do you sift your powdered sugar? That might help.

Check the consistency of your icing. Also I've noticed this tends to happen with icing that I didn't have covered up (w/ a wet towel or an airtight lid) and it has gotten little tiny pieces of crusted over icing throughout the frosting...Those pieces kind of clog the tip...

I think too, that your icing is to stiff, or the sugar is not well mixed. I mixed my RI in the mixer for 5 minutes. If you are not working with the bag of certain color, put wet paper towel around the tip, otherwise it will dry and clog.

I had the same problems too with my small tips and started a post on the same issue a little while back

Here is it:

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-630347.html

I got told a really great tip about using a nylon stocking to strain your RI through to get rid of any small lumps that clog the tip and it works fantastically!!! It can be a little messy though lol

HTH