My purchase

I was at the big box store. Walmart and looked through their craft and notion aisle. I found a different type of pin. Dritz now makes a pearlized headed applique pin. Clover has made on for a long time. But theirs are smaller. 

The one on the left is the Dritz pin. The head is bigger for those of us with stiff fingers who still do applique. I also use them on holding the hexie papers and the fabric together until you baste the units. Sorry the pictures aren't great. 

I think there are 150 pins in this container for just under $2 at Walmart. I like to pass on new items that might make your work easier. 

We have a storm coming and I am going to go in and organize my fabric for more hexies so I can sit by the window and watch the weather blow on through. I am trying to find a container to hold the hexie shapes, scissors, thimble, thread, pins and fabric. I have a basket with a center handle that is flat on the bottom so I think it needs cleaned out and refilled with the necessary things. 

Update: I have worked with the new pins all afternoon and 

I love them. Chris

OMGosh.......

I have been reading blogs of quilters for about 7 years. I think there are still a few I read every day or at least every time they post. I have made a decision.

I am not dedicated enough to accomplish what they do. Not every one is a quilt teacher or in the business to make a living. I am not, but they keep cranking out the quilts.

I have a small house and I have limited ways of getting rid of them. My kids and grandkids have no place to store them.

I think I have been pretty hard on myself with the goals to complete things. I think after this last Fall and being sick I need to work on myself.

I plan on working on what is here, but I think I need to not keep a to-do list that maybe will get started, but never finished.

I think I have a plan and I think I am going to stick to it. Chris

I am up

Not sure what is going to take place today. We have the possibility of ice storms coming our way over the weekend. I have food in the house and I thought about making some snack stuff before the possibility of loosing electricity.

We live on a well so water will have to be drawn off to use to drink and toilets. I think i am going to round up some hexies to work on in case we loose the electricity. I can do that to keep myself busy.

Charge my phone and maybe the laptop. We can maybe watch a movie if nothing  else. I have a ton of DVD's around. We have a puzzle in the works. Plenty of batteries and we have a gas fireplace we can light for heat.

This old girl has lived in the country before and needed to be prepared. If an outage is prolonged it will be cold enough to place food in containers and place on the porch. If we have to place food in containers and put on the porch to keep it from spoiling. We have the covered porch and it isn't 80 degrees out. Thank goodness.

Sit by the fire and sew like they did in the pioneer days.

I remember being without electricity out here for 19.5 hours a couple years ago. This time we have the fireplace with a manual gas pilot in it so we have heat. It struggles to be above 60 if the furnace isn't running, but better than no heat at all. We will survive.

Hope everyone is safe and not in this storms path. Keep on stitching Chris

Cutting and sewing but over whelmed

 Sewing to try and keep my sanity is now making me insane. Everywhere I turn there is a pile of sewn pieces or completed blocks and there they sit.

This will be a century old before I get done with it and I have another one just like it with different tan fabric started also. 

This was an experiment that I think will be placed in a row quilt with some other odd blocks I have tucked away. 

9-patches in multiple sizes are floating around and nothing more has been done with them. There is probably 50 of them there.

4-patches well what can I say I think i have four bags of them and also I found some smaller ones on a pressing board I have in the sewing room and there is almost 200 of them. 

Solid and string blocks. Enough for a couch throw. 

I have been up since 3:30am. Hurting and couldn't lay there any longer. The  longest period of sleep last night was an hour and fifteen minutes at one time. 

I got up this morning to go make coffee and stubbed my big toe and ripped the nail pretty badly. So Which is worse hurting laying quietly or walking and hurting while moving. I give up.

I think after a little while I am going to go back and lay down. I have taken some meds and Hopefully I get sleepy from them. 

I think I will get up then and get dressed and sew until I can't sit there anymore. Don't have any other plans for the day. Made a pot of vegetable beef soup yesterday so lunch is just a warm up deal. 

Ok as you can see I have lots to do if I just get in there. Chris 

What is wrong with me???

After dinner each night I start to get uptight. Lights are on. I am not alone, but the feeling is still there.

I try and find a hobby or look on Pinterest. I can loose several hours looking at Pinterest. Mostly I look at quilting, embroidery, cooking sites.

I guess I now when I lay down at night I suffer with pain I can't get rid of. I am improving, but I still hate this time of night. I have an adjustable bed which I play with a lot during the night to find less pressure for a period of time.

During the day I walk use the heating pad and change chairs to relieve it. At night you don't have those options. I have tried pillows, side to side positions. I need some good sleep.

I am going to try and calm down and see if I can make a different approach to going to bed.

Here is the block

The logs in this block are all cut in 2 inches X 3.5 inches. You can print out this picture for your pattern. It uses up lots of color and pieces in a hurry. A bright colored quilt top with these colors for kids. You can change the colorways to pastels and neutrals or repro civil war prints.

I have used men's shirtings in this one for contrast. This one will make a twin quilt when the blocks are all sewn together. 

You can change the size of the logs to larger sizes to make a larger block. The challenge is make it your own.Chris 

More sewing

Row sewing has been going on. I ran out of bobbin thread so I took a break. These are 2 in X 3.5 inch logs sewn together to make the blocks. 

You sew to together the long way and then add the logs around. Tomorrow I will make a tutorial on the block. It uses up a lot of scraps and makes a good sized block when all the rounds are sewn on.

It has rained today and kinda gloomy. I went to Walmart and did a little shopping. So I am pan frying chicken for supper. I am hungry for chicken. So after this I will get the prep stuff done and get dinner started.

We normally don't eat big meals every night, but I was hungry for a change.

Hope you have a good evening. Chris