From UFO to Handy Tote

And this UFO is one I never planned to finish. Let me explain…..

If you remember, back in June, I took a workshop with Cassandra Beaver and ended up with this partially finished piece…..

Honestly, I was planning to just chop this up and turn it into dog bed filling…… BUT…..

Before our trip, I was contemplating our 16-hour flights to and from Johannesburg. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time editing videos, so I needed a pair of headphones. They arrived from Amazon with a thin paper case to hold them…..

After looking at the “case”, I decided that I needed a new one, so why not make one from the workshop UFO!!

I cut the case open to use as a pattern and placed it over one of the more finished areas of the quilt….

Once I knew which area I would be using, I added some loopy meander quilting to finish the background…

I cut out the pattern, making it a bit larger than needed….

I folded it, making sure that the headphones would fit well…..

I added binding to the top edge….

…..folded it over and added binding around three sides….

So fun…..

Folding the top over and adding a snap finished the bag perfectly….

It was such fun to reach into my pack and pull out my new “headphone case”!!

I am so glad that I found a use for this particular UFO.

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More UFO’s in here?

As part of my cleaning out phase and trying to document all of the UFOs in my life, I opened this box, innocuously labeled as “Misc. Scraps”!!

This is where I toss all the leftover blocks and bits from previous quilts.

You can see an extra brown-and-red strip block, leftover from this top made back in December of 2025…..

But, as you dig deeper, there are hundreds of blocks from “no-longer-remembered” quilts from years ago…..

I think it is time to clean this box out and pass them on to my guild charity group. Who KNOWS what magical things they can create from my cast-offs!!

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From UFO to Quick Gift!!

One of my clients has had an amazing office manager who made my life so much easier. Sadly, she is moving this week, and I wanted to make something for her as a goodbye and thank-you present.

Since time was of the essence, I needed to start with something partially made….think UFO!!

Several years ago, I appliquéd two funky flowers as practice to see if I wanted to make more…

That particular project didn’t get any further, but these two flowers looked to be the perfect start for a mug rug!

I started out by squaring up the block, then spent some time deciding how large I wanted it to be and how big I wanted the corner triangles to be…

Once decided, I quickly sewed them in place and squared it up one more time….

I decided I didn’t want to have to apply binding, so I planned to “burp” the quilt instead. Come back next Tuesday, and I will show you my method for doing this!!

I sat down to start quilting, but thought the machine was making a strange sound…..

YEP….that isn’t right!!

A bit of re-threading, and I ended up with a good quilting stitch. After that, the quilting was fast and easy….

….just an outline and a swoop!!

So, within about an hour, I had a quick gift ready to go…..

….AND, I got rid of another UFO at the same time.

A WIN-WIN!!

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More Odds & Ends from Mom

Well, I lied last week when I said I had shown you the last of Mom’s UFO stash I found while cleaning out her house some 10 years ago.

I had forgotten about these….

I recognize the pineapple from a Christmas quilt that she made, and the butterfly was left over from a couple of Butterfly Quilts, but the rest are a mystery.

And an equal mystery is what I want to do with them!!

This pieced-and-embroidered block is sweet…

….and it would be fun to add some borders and turn it into a pillow.

I think that I might just frame this small embroidery piece….

It would be a great addition to my spring decorating….

HMMM… since I will be doing that decorating in the next two weeks, maybe I need to get on this right now!!

Then there is this block…..

I have no idea whether this was something Mom made or Granny made.

But, I have an idea of what to do with it.

A few years ago, Kathleen Rountree spoke at our guild. Her specialty was making whole-cloth quilts from vintage linens…. something like this…

Wouldn’t it be fun to use that block as the centerpiece of a whole-cloth quilt and add tons of quilting around it?

It would take some thinking and time to design, but it is definitely going on the “to-be-done” list!!

So, I think that is about it for Mom’s UFO’s.

I have found it super helpful to write about them here and am thankful for all of your comments and suggestions.

What this series REALLY means is that I have a few more items to add to my To-Do list and a few items that no long exist in my UFO box!!

A Win-Win!!

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One of my favorite things about quilting is motivating others and helping them in their quilting journey. As part of this endeavor, I LOVE to present programs and workshops to groups and guilds around the world. All of my programs work well with Zoom meetings, and I would love to speak to your group.

You can find out more at this link…..

Collaborative Quilt to Come….

We have finally worked through all of the the UFO’s that my Mom left for me. I consider this next one to be MY UFO rather than hers.

In the past, Mom and I had worked on a couple of collaborative quilts. The first was this one….

Mom had appliqued tons of these gorgeous flower blocks…..

…but couldn’t figure out what to do with them. I stepped in and turned them into a flower showcase!!

Next, I found a pattern from “Piece O’ Cake designs and sent Mom blocks to applique. Those I turned into this wonderful quilt…

There were WAY TOO MANY borders in this quilt’s making!!

Since that had been so successful, I sent another set of blocks….

….and she proceeded to quickly applique them and send them back.

At this point, her eyesight was failing, so these blocks aren’t quite at the same quality level.

But they are BEAUTIFUL and truly need to be finished into a quilt.

….And they will be…..SOMEDAY!!

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