UFO Finishes Challenge 2026

Here's a post I should have made last month! The UFO Challenge from last year was a really big success for me, so I put together another list for 2026. All of those are crammed together into the above image. They pretty much all look like they're made by the same person, so I guess that's good. Or maybe I'm just used to them because they've been hanging around for so long...being UFO's and all.

Here's the very cute image for the challenge. Great color combo and I'm into the slogan "A Year of Finishes".

An illustrated list:

Bohemian Wife - starting point: the top and back are done, binding is made. (Also on my BAMQ UFO list)

Temperature Quilt - starting point: the columns are done, the top is 2/3 put together.

Bending the Calendar- starting point: the quilt is assembled and mostly quilted. (Also on my BAMQ UFO list)

City Sampler- the starting point: the quilt is quilted and the binding is halfway sewn on

 David Owen Hastings class piece. (It's really in pieces!) I left myself notes though. And I really still quite like it a lot. Starting point: three pieces or "blocks" out of six are done, drawing are made for the other three. (Also on my BAMQ UFO list)

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May You Ever Return - This one is very recently done! And that's mainly because it's also on the UFO Challenge list for BAMQ, See...overlapping UFO Challenges is an extra boost for me.  That one has 12 items on it, one for each month. I actually have four overlapping ones! So we'll see if that works for me with the other three.

Palooza Chunks

 

Final starting point picture that I'm working from as I assemble the Patchwork Palooza quilt top.

Trying the quilt chunking method that friend Jaye uses for quilt top assembly. Here's how it looks once the first two chunks were done. These are big blocks, so not a lot of real estate getting uncovered.

Four chunks done, and only two more columns to go. Had to quit because my wrist was aching from so much ironing. I can't wear my wrist brace and use my Oliso iron normally. The sensor in the handle doesn't work well without skin contact to put the feet down. I think I'll switch off the auto feet and use the iron rest that I have while wearing my brace to do the rest.

Palooza Almost Top

 

At Sew Day, I also sewed all of the cornerstone/sashings onto the Patchwork Palooza blocks. By the end of the day, my right wrist was really tired (and I had my brace on too!) so I packed them all up without pressing the seams. As I unpacked everything from that bag today, I ironed those seams, and the blocks as well. Then even with them grouped together in columns, I tried to arrange everything the same way as I'd had it originally. I got pretty close, but thankfully I noticed the boo-boo before doing any more sewing.

Then I remembered, there was the left hand side of the quilt top-to-be, those sashing/cornerstones hadn't gotten sewn on. 

So now that all ironing is done, I'm nearly ready to sew this top together! Except for a little more rearranging

Bad Bunny Trimming

 

After making those Flying Geese blocks for the Bamq BOM, I ended up with a bunch of teeny-tiny HSTs™ to iron and trim. All because I didn't bring the special ruler along with me and so I had to make the Flying Geese blocks the "wasteful" way. I wasn't feeling up to going to Costco for our usual Super Bowl speed run, so I set up with my iPad on my sewing table and watched some of the game as I pressed. I may use these teeny-tiny's in the quilt that I make out of all the Bamq BOM.

And then I trimmed all of them. It was such a great halftime show. It was like a little mini history lesson and musical and dance party all rolled into one. I don't know Bad Bunny's music at all, I've only encountered him in movies like Bullet Train. He is quite a performer.

I know just enough Spanish to be able to catch a lot of what he was saying and singing, but I looked up the translation of how he first introduced himself: "My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, and if I'm here today at Super Bowl 60, it's because I never, ever stopped believing in myself. You should also believe in yourself. You're worth more than you think. Trust me."  What a great message to start out with! 

I had a hard time simultaneously chair-dancing and trimming, but I was careful to take turns so I didn't cut myself. I can see why he's the most popular current artist these days. The NFL was smart to ask him to do the halftime show, they're looking to get a wider range of fans watching worldwide, and the ratings were record-breaking, at least for the halftime.

I'll admit I was crying a bit at the end, Bad Bunny saying "God Bless America" (the only words of English that he spoke) and then naming off all of the countries that comprise South, Central and North America was so beautiful and moving to me. The football that he had been holding the whole show (he got more yards rushing than the Patriots did, hah!), he then held it out and you could see that it said: 

TOGETHER WE ARE AMERICA.   

The big screen at the stadium displayed this very powerful message:

THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE. 

Here, here!

That was a really good combination to keep me going until I was all done.

Afterwards, I loved reading all the how-they-did-it information about the complicated production of the half time performance. It was really quite impressive technically, because the limitations of not ruining the real grass playing field and getting set up and off on time. The couple that was shown being married during the performance, actually got married.  This interview with one of the 400 people who wore 50 pound grass costumes (seen above) is a great behind-the-scenes peek of how something like this works. That would have been very fun to be a bunch of grass!

In case you missed it, here's a link on YouTube to the whole thing.

BAMQ BOM: Flying Geese

At Sew Day yesterday I worked on making my BAMQ BOM blocks, which are as you can see: Flying Geese.

I like the variety that I made, but am considering also making another couple sets that have dark centers and lighter wings to balance them out.

Here's all of my blocks so far. I think I might need to make some gigantic Flying Geese as well. Well, maybe not exactly gigantic, but at least as big as the checkerboard.

 

May You Ever Return - Finished

 

I finished the hand-stitching over the word SMILE.

I zig-zagged over the word REMEMBER

and now it is a lot closer to non-contrasty than before.

Time for trimming and facing.

Tah-dah! All done! I'm honestly shocked. But very very pleased.  Oh the power of a group deadline....

To Cover ELIMS

 

I've been looking at this piece, May You Ever Return up on my design wall for a while now, and two of the words stick out way too much: SMILE and REMEMBER. The other words have been disguised well enough or pushed back visually enough to work for me. SMILE has been inked onto the fabric and then zig-zag stitched in brown. I pinned up two embroidery thread colors above the words to see how they looked on the fabric in question.

This was helpful to "make visual decisions visually."

Just doing a close little whip-stitch over the 

I think that helps quite a lot, so I'm going to continue and then work on REMEMBER

Green Snake Stitching

 

There and back again to Spokane, so that meant a bit of time for some airport stitching. I started in on one of the very last bits of Snake in the Garden that need to be stitched, the spiral-ly green pool. Instead of doing random stitches, I chose to follow the spiral printed on the fabric. I might also add in some of the gold green on the other part of the fabric design. Getting close to the end. 

Wandering Wednesday - Quail Hollow

We've been trying to go hiking every weekend and made it four out of five of the weekends in January. Two of the hikes were on the same trail in Quail Hollow Ranch in Ben Lomond. DH is making his best "wood rat" face as we start on the Wood Rat Trail. This is a clever little fence block to keep the horses off this trail.

The first time we pooped out and didn't get all the way to the top, but the second time we made it the whole way. Gradual improvement is still improvement.

The peeling bark of the madrone is so funny to see, it somehow gives the tree so much personality.

Halfway up the trail, but we can't see the ocean yet.

Sometimes the fallen logs look unreal or even fake to me, like this one. The texture of the bark splitting as it all dries and retracts is so interesting. This would make a good quilt design. Adding this to my possible quilt designs list.

Gorgeous Jack O'Lantern mushroom.

We made it to the very top that has the view out to the ocean. A very nice picnic spot.

Keep Upright

 

This is my Stash n' Store organizer that I have had on my worktable for seven years. I never liked the color, I thought it was grey in the store and not brown/beige. Anyways, it's started not working too well for me, things keep falling out or tipping over.

I finally looked closer and saw that the failure was because a whole lot of the dividers have gotten chopped up by the scissors and seam rippers. 

So, it was time for a new one! I hope that this one is stronger, but I'm also going to try and make sure the seam ripper cap is on before I stash it in the organizer. At least the color that shows from above is a lot more to my liking. I also tried out all the pens and made sure they still worked and threw a couple away, so I'm feeling organized and productive. Very briefly, but still, I'll take that win today.

February To-Do

Here's how the design wall is looking on the first day of this new month. Pretty busy and crowded! Patchwork Palooza blocks and sashing are still awaiting re-arrangment and assembly. May You Ever Return is pinned up on top of it. Over on the right are finished pieces, Clean Cloud from Project Quilting is pinned up over the SAT 25 quilt, Our Mistake. Above are a few things like my dragon paper pieced block which I still need to do something with, but I like seeing it. Same with the 3-D cube made with my own dyed fabrics.

Note: the use of 🥏👽  by a project name indicates that it's on the 2026 UFO Finishes challenge list of six projects that I committed to finishing at the beginning of the year (more on that list later). Note, this is not the same list as the UFO Challenge for BAMQ, that UFO will have this next to it on the list:🌀🌐

QUILTS

Design & Begin

Design and make a quilt for the BAMQ Challenge display at the SMCF - No picture yet

Design and make a quilt for the BAMQ library display - No picture yet

Pantone Project - work on an overall design, either in EQ8 or up on the design wall.

Lupine & Laughter Mystery Quilt - keep making units as the mystery clues are revealed.

BAMQ BOM - make monthly blocks of varying sizes through the year.

Continue Assembly

Patchwork Palooza - rearrange, sew on sashing/cornerstones and assemble top

Keep working on Sour Grass Grace from Jane Sassaman class.

Old Town Mystery Quilt - make a backing & binding, decide on whether to have it quilted

AG Stamp Quilt - continue to make more blocks using the final group of fussy-cut stamp block centers from Tula Pink fabrics.

Continue the piecing of Selvedge Candy (maybe the name) quilt originally designed for the 2025 MQG challenge.

🥏👽 Sew the last 6 columns and sashing together of the 2023 Temperature Quilt together to make the quilt top.

🥏👽 Bohemian Wife -  Sandwich this and start quilting it

                                      

Quilting

leaving this category right here so I don't forget to use it next time

Final Steps 

🌀🌐May You Ever Return - trim, add facings, embroidery, hanging sleeve. Finish for BAMQ UFO Challenge by 2/7

🥏👽City Sampler- back from the long-armer, now to sew down the binding and finish!

HANDWORK/BAG/CLOTHING PROJECTS 

Make a Cotton Candy pouch for myself.

Make a Charlie's Aunt wool purse for myself, first felt the wool from Pendleton Mill.

Oxbow Tote - Continue the assembly. 

Toned-Down Circle Sampler - now that I have the appropriately sized grey background felt, arrange and appliqué the circles, start embroidering.

Y.E.S. Coat - continue making pieces/blocks. assemble on foundation, cut out lining pieces from the fabric that I dyed

Snake In The Garden - Finish hand stitching

Kawandii - Finish hand stitching/assembly

Hey! This Is All Finished!

Designed and made a quilt for Project Quilting 17.1 - Clean Cloud

Designed and made a quilt for SAT 26 - Cumulative Spiral

Well well well, what do you know? Some actual finishing happened during this past month! And a lot more on the near horizon...