So I turned them into lemonade.
What I wanted was little half inch checkers to go with my wee pinwheel blocks. As you see, I messed up on the math and made them a wee bit too small.
Blocks this small take more time and excellent pinning to come out right. And yes, there’s that silly math problem to work out too. Rather than pick them all apart, they are simply too small for that, or just toss them, that would be wasteful, I chose to make something I’ve really wanted/needed for some time!
A pin cushion and thread catcher set. The blocks are still junk, I couldn’t even make the checkerboard come out (!!!) but they work well enough for this application. 😉
Pin cushion with wonky non-checkerboard top
And thread catcher.
The fat bit on the back of the tread catcher, behind the pin cushion, is a little rice stuffing to weight it in place when I move the pin cushion.
My last sewing pins were on one of those magnetic donuts to hold them in place. Over time they collected dust, tarnished and became magnetized themselves. Sticking to themselves was frustrating, but tarnished pins leaving marks in your lovely fabric was infuriating!
I paid good money for wonderful, new ,very fine, glass head pins, and now they have a decent (if a bit wonky) home. And the bonus thread catcher means no more loose threads traveling about the house on my sock clad feet or in Buddy’s fur!
Ah, that’s better!
~*~
And for today’s magic trick…
I turn this into something else I need.
Life on the Farmlet 
Mighty fine looking lemonade!
Thank you, Annie! I had fun once I got over the disappointment of not making what I had planned. 🙂
Math. It’ll get you every time. Still, the results are very fine, so not a total washout! I confess to resorting to making a template of the pieces I want at full size, adding a quarter inch seam allowance all round, and working from there. It can be laborious, but since I’m arithmetically challenged AND have chemo brain, I’ll stick to what works for me!
Yeah, I do that too, but this time it was all those extra little seams. (X2 in both directions?) And does that half square triangle take a full 1/4 inch off the size, or 1/8th or HORRORS 1/2 ?!?!?! 😉
I guess I’ll figure it out, Kate, but it may take a few more lemons before I get to what I was aiming for. 😀
I’m going to send you my HST and QST size calculators – not taking the credit for creating them, just having the sense to use them… It really is too much for a mature brain to take on board, I feel!
YAY! I appreciate this. (sent you my email too) 😉 Thanks, Kate!
Waste not, want not. Sound thinking.
Yes, Tom. Fabric is up to about $11.00 a yard here. I can’t afford to waste scraps or throw away my mistakes! 🙂
I can quite see that. Perhaps you had better take up weaving and make your own.
Now you have reminded me of the Good Neighbors (aka: The Good Life) when they spun their wool and dyed it a bilious green to make into clothing. 😉
A favourite programme.
One of the best! We started watching it on PBS in the 80s and when they quit playing it we found it on DVD and bought the series. We dig it out about once a year and watch it all over again. Such fun!
That is a classy-looking pin cushion to me! The coordinating thread catcher is nice, too.
Thank you, Patti. I just hate throwing away fabric. It’s so expensive nowadays!
A pretty smart conversion, if you ask me…
Protecting your investment AND keeping thread cling-ons off of the floor? AWESOME!!
Not to mention the absolutely GORgeous colour combination you’ve got going here… Nice job, Linda!: )
Thank you, Deb! I had fun in spite of myself. 😉
I love the colors, too. And now I know what that hangy-thingie is that I’ve seen with pincushions. I thought it was a place to keep a supply of candy. 🙂
There’s not a thing wrong with trial and error. It’s called a learning curve — although I confess my learning curves tend toward S-curves. I’ve never experienced consistent onward-and-upward in my life!
Linda, I do like your candy idea! As for learning curves, well, I too sport some rather wild ones from time to time. The only thing I ever made perfect the first time was a cherry pie. Then I begged my aunty to let me make it for Thanksgiving that year. We were all sporting pink teeth after desert. 😎
MATH is exactly why I am no good at sewing or anything requiring that type of measurement. The funny thing is, I was always great at accounting and number crunching. I’m not going to think too hard on what that is all about. I think it might be too confusing. I’ll just roll with what I do understand of math! I think your cushion and catcher is cute! 🙂
LOL! I was never good at accounting and number crunching. I would make dyslexic entries and then never find them. Ergo, I couldn’t get the same end total no matter how many times I crunched those columns! Nope, accounting wasn’t for me. (Even if my parents did say it was the sensible course for me to take instead of Archaeology. Could you imagine me as an archaeologist? I think I would have been a very good one, and perhaps become famous in my career. Ahhh, pipe dreams… 😉 )
Lynda, I’m so glad to have returned to blogging in time to see your lovely pin cushion. Love the colors and if you say it’s wonky, I’ll believe you. I like it!!
LOL, yes, if you look closely the “checkerboard” pattern is not a checkerboard. and the corners of the little 1/2 inch blocks don’t connect as they should. 😉 Thank you, Laurie!
You are so creative!!
If I lived near you, I would ask you to teach me how to do things like this!
Thank you, Mary, and if you lived near me I would love to show you how!