12 UFO Challenge

 In order to be clear about the two UFO challenges I'm participating in this year, here's a post about the 12 projects I put on my list for the 2026 BAMQ UFO Challenge. This challenge came about when one of our members, Christine, was talking about another guild's challenge and how it had gotten her to work on projects that had fallen off her radar. It sounded like a new way to inspire people so I volunteered to help her organize it for our group.

  As I wrote yesterday there is overlap with the 2026 UFO Finishes Challenge, those four will be noted with this symbol🥏👽.

The way this challenge works is you turn in a list that is numbered, and every month at Sew Day we randomly pick one of the remaining numbers from 1-12 to be the project everyone works on and tries to finish before the next Sew Day. The first number chosen in January was #12, the second number chosen in February was #9. I worked on my #12 and finished it, the May You Ever Return quilt. And now I'm working on my #9 project, the Oxbow Tote. As we only have a month to work on and finish these things, I tried to structure my list so that I'd both be challenged and also have some easier finishes.

Here's my illustrated list of 12:

1. Clover Pillowcase - first started in a class in 2023, last worked on in 2023.
   
2. Kawandii - first started in a classs in 2021, last worked on in March 2025.
   
3. Bohemian Wife quilt-🥏👽 started in 2017, last worked on in 2025.
   
4. Snake in the Garden quilt - started in a class in 2007, last worked on February 2026.
   
5. Mini QCR Pumpkins - started in 2019, last worked on ?!who knows?!
   
6. Five by Five quilt - started in a 2022 class, last worked on in December 2022.
   
7. Dave Owen Hastings Class quilt -  🥏👽 started in a 2022 class, not worked on since then.
   
8. Body Pillow pillowcase - back when I put this on my list, it was intended for my older rectangular body pillow. I now have this new one which is twice as long and rather curvy. I'm thinking it would be nice to have a cotton jersey cover, nice and stretchy to bend with the curves, cozy feeling and easy to wash.
   
9. Oxbow Tote - started in 2024, last worked on December 2025.
   
10. Quilted Dog Jacket-pattern bought in 2024, not started yet.
    
11. Bending the Calendar quilt -🥏👽  started in 2012, last worked on?who knows?!
    
12. May You Ever Return quilt -🥏👽 started in a class in 2018, first one chosen and finished!
    

Here's to challenges that inspire and make me actually me spend the time to even go find the projects that I'm supposed to be working on! That's something of a start, right?

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)

'

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.

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

Returning to Choices

 

Today I worked on finishing up the free motion quilting on May You Ever Return. Almost there, but I had to make some thread choices.

The different blues and greens in this fabric was hard to match.

As usual one of my Studio Assistants made sure I was "Making Good Choices."

Getting there.

This is my favorite X so far.

I was tired of free motion quilting, so switched over to get to some zig-zagging on the shapes who's edges hadn't been stitched down.

The words are supposed to be not really legible at a glance.

Almost done with the quilting and zig-zagging. (Just the lower left) and I'm really pleased with how it's looking so far.

Lots of Quilting Lines

 

A lot more free motion quilting got done on May You Ever Return yesterday. I'm very focused in on it, but I'll admit that I keep struggling to stop myself from switching over to work on other things like the Patchwork Palooza on my design wall or the Lupine Mystery.

After an initial alarmed response at all the noise near her napping spot, one of my studio assistants kept an eagle eye on my process.

The quilting is getting pretty dense in some spots. While I was quilting, I pinned back some of the un-anchored shapes in order to just have the lines go under where they'll end up being zig-zagged down. This will help with "floating" the shapes above the densely quilted surface in a consistent way across the whole surface.

No decision made on the number of X's, and I see some hand-embroidery/stitching in my future. Also, this quilt is getting the facing treatment as opposed to a binding. Countdown to the UFO Challenge due date of 2/7. That's just ten days, two of which will be traveling to Spokane and back again. Maybe if I get it to the finishing point of sewing the facings down it will come along with me, but I'm not counting on that.

How Many X's

 

Doing a lot of blue on blue free motion quilting. Still deciding on whether to add more X's or not. As there are already three orange ones, that likely means adding two more. On re-reading, my notes are a little unclear, so I'm going with what I see in front of me right now.

I've gotten all of the smaller pieces sewn down in their centers, so the majority of straight pins are now gone. I'm using safety pins to hold down most of the rest. That makes the quilt sandwich so much nicer to handle while free motion quilting.

Time for a thread color change.

Eleven days to go until the UFO Challenge deadline at Sew Day. Will I make it? 

Almost Out of Words

 

I concentrated on getting the words left to be stitched done yesterday on May You Ever Return. This is the before picture, mostly for my reference so that I can put it back in the correct position after I did the stitching. I switched over to a free motion foot and dropped the feed dogs so I could do the smaller cursive writing.

Here's the after stitching picture. I used a small width zig zag stitch. The smaller shapes have single words, intentionally written small and hidden. See the picture below for a before picture. So, I've stitched the words in a blue that camouflages them pretty well. And it's also done in a straight stitch, no more zig zag. I stitched them in place instead of taking each off and then repositioning.

There's going to be several more thread color changes needed.

And then...a mini disaster! A broken needle! That big pin was caught underneath in a folded-over seam. I thought I'd uncovered all of those, but apparently not. All the parts of the needle were found, and it was definitely  time for a needle change anyways.

Here's how it's looking so far. Looking more finished day by day.

And only one more section with words left to do. Then it's mostly free-motion quilting left to do which is a lot easier.