During IKE we lost power for 2 weeks. I just sewed my blocks by hand. There was nothing else to do anyway. It is fun to look at the quilt and point to the IKE star blocks. It turned out to be a great story to go along with the quilt. I was making the quilt for my cousin and added the information on the label. No power does not mean no sewing, a great time to improve your hand sewing skills. Just think about all the quilts that were made before there were sewing machines.