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.

Please Stay tuned.