Flying Geese - PQ 13.6

It's hard to believe that this is the last challenge for Project Quilting 13.  The time has just seemed to fly by, which is maybe why Trisha chose Flying Geese as the theme for the final challenge?

I laughed a little when I saw the topic for the challenge, because my entry for the first challenge consisted of bright flying geese blocks made into a potholder.  I honestly considered making a matching one for this challenge, because ... matching potholders, right? But I ultimately decided against that idea.

I have several patterns that use flying geese, and a couple of them are for baby quilts.  I always like to make baby quilts to have on hand to gift to new mothers.  But unfortunately, I knew that this was going to be another short week for getting the challenge completed.  I am going on a quilt retreat with my guild, leaving on Thursday and not returning until Sunday evening.  The retreat center is about an hour from me, and is in a very rural area. I wanted to get my project done, posted and linked by Wednesday afternoon,  just in case the retreat center doesn't have a good internet connection. 

So again, I needed to have a small project.  I considered another potholder, because I can always use them,  and started looking around for ideas.  I remembered a block that I had seen that had geese flying in a circle. This looked like a possibility until I realized that the block finished at 12 inches square.  I resized the pattern so that it would finish at 8 inches, looked at all those tiny paper-pieced pieces and said Nope!

I am not a big fan of paper piecing.  I realize that it is great for projects that require small pieces and sharp points, but I just can't seem to get my head around working upside down and backwards!  

But, Project Quilting calls the weekly projects 'challenges', right?   So I challenged myself to do a small paper pieced project and (maybe) get better at it.  Using a discarded Starbucks cup sleeve as a pattern,  I made a paper pieced flying geese cup cozy.  

My very first seam had to be ripped out because I had put the wrong fabric on top and the goose fabric went the wrong way.  That didn't bode well for the project!  Instead of balling it up and throwing it in a corner, which I was sorely tempted to do, I persevered.  I got out the smallest seam ripper that I own and took out those tiny stitches.  Fortunately, the edges of the paper were intact, so I didn't need to draw a new pattern.  

Taking a deep breath, I started again.  Once I got into it, it really wasn't so bad.  Lining up the fabric on the wrong side of the paper is a bit fiddly, but I only had to rip out a few more seams before I got it done.  

I had planned to overlap the edges slightly and stitch it across the edge to finish it.   You know what they say about best laid plans, right?   It turns out that the finished size wasn't long enough to go around my mug with any overlap.  Well, darn!!!  Starbucks cups must be narrower than the cups in my house.  

I really didn't want to start over.  After mulling over the problem, I realized that a lot of cup cozies use a button and elastic in order to let them fit around multiple sized mugs.  So I dug into my button box and found a coordinating button, and grabbed some cord elastic that was left over from making masks.  TA-DA!  It fits not only the cup that I planned to use it on, but it also wraps around and through the handle of many of the mugs in my house!

                                         

So that's a wrap for Project Quilting 13.6!  Yes, pun intended!