Yesterday I shared the Ugly Duckling Challenge project I made for our quilt guild exchange (click here to see more) and today I'm sharing the Ugly Duckling Turned Beautiful Swan project that I received. Luckily, my mom drew my name so I was doubly blessed - a pretty, functional gift and a gift made by my mom!
Mom gathered ideas from several sites to design an armchair caddie and I LOVE it! One of the sites she used as a guide was the same site I found my Ugly Duckling pattern. Lillyella has an armchair caddie called the Mini Maker Station.
She did a great job of turning this Ugly Duckling fabric with monkeys on it into a beautiful Swan. She did it by fussy cutting just the green background and using the little pieces in the pieced half-square triangles. She did put a piece of the fabric for the lining of the thread catcher so you can peek inside to see the original fabric. This had to be the ugliest of all the Ugly Duckling fabrics brought for the challenge. I bought this piece as a back-up choice for a backing for my first grandson's baby quilt. Luckily, I found something better after this purchase!
One of my favorite things about the caddie mom made is that she used a vintage appliqued placemat and napkin on the pockets on each side and on the pincushion. This embroidered flower on the placemat was where the napkin slipped in! Mom used it to hold a little pair of scissors. So creative!
Mom said she had to order the binding clips to find them in colors that matched the caddie. She also hunted to find pastel pearl-head pins to match the little pin cushion. And she tucked a vintage green seam ripper under the pin cushion and color coordinated the spool of thread. Now that's going the extra mile!
I can't wait to bind a quilt (one of my least favorite things) just to use my new caddie. Thank you mom for such a special gift!
~Sharla
Way back in February, mom and I came up with an idea for a quilt guild challenge called the Ugly Duckling. Each member was to bring a piece of their ugliest fabric - at least 10" square - from their stash. At the meeting, we labeled each piece with an Ugly Duckling tag with their name on it and placed them all in a sack. Then for roll call, each member drew a piece of fabric out of the sack. Their challenge was to make something pretty from the fabric - turning the Ugly Duckling into a beautiful Swan - and then we would gift them back to the original fabric owner. We were going to hold the gift exchange at our spring retreat in April. Then the stay-at-home order happened in March and our guild didn't meet again until last night. So now that we've finally gifted our Ugly Ducklings back, I can show you what I made.
My Ugly Duckling was not really ugly, but a pretty piece of vintage fabric from guild member Pat's mother's stash that she inherited. I was lucky that she brought a yard of fabric so I had lots to play with. When we have our Sewcial Hour (an open sewing afternoon prior to our evening guild meeting), Pat brings her featherweight to sew. I decided I wanted to make her a sewing mat to put under her sewing machine. I used Lillyella's Undercover Mat tutorial for my pattern, except I decided to piece the mat so that I could use a variety of fabrics.
Since the piece of fabric I drew was vintage, I decided to use reproduction 30's fabrics for the project. I had this Modern Gem P2P quilting pattern in mind when I chose to piece that mat section, I just think it is such an awesome design by Anita Shackelford.
Lillyella's tutorial includes cute pockets on the front of the mat to hold sewing essentials.
And a little thread catcher that hangs from a button attached to the front.
I finally got to use some of my polka dot bias binding with the crochet edge that I bought a year or two ago - it was just waiting for the perfect project.
I just love the way this Ugly Duckling turned into a beautiful Swan. I hope Pat does too!
Happy Quilting!
~Sharla
P.S. In Part 2, I'll share the Ugly Duckling fabric I brought for the challenge and the Swan I received last night!
I'm all caught up on the Moda Block Heads 3 sew along until Wednesday. Wish I was caught up on my temperature quilt blocks but that's for another day, I guess. Don't these blocks look so cute! I'm loving this color palette!
Block 18 was another applique block from Jan Patek so chose to make one of the alternate blocks by Sheri McConnell of A Quilting Life. Her block called for 4 of these tulip blocks but when I made this on Saturday, I wasn't in the mood for tiny pieces so opted to make just one larger one. Even at one tulip, the largest finished piece is 1 1/2".
Block 19 is called Compass Point by Brigitte Heitland. This was a quick foundation paper piecing block and I chose to make mine patriotic. I probably need to make some more two-color blocks or this one may stick out like a sore thumb.
Block 20 is Contribution by Lisa Bongean. I put this one off until yesterday because it looked like it was going to be a lot of little pieces to fiddle with but it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. Although I did have to rip out a couple of seams and redo them to get all the points to meet. I like the fussy cut dresden plate in the center of the star.
Block 21 is by Lissa Alexander and is called XOXO - who would have guessed!
Block 22 is called Hen & Chicks by Laurie Simpson. Color placement on this one can really change the look of this block and I debated on what I wanted to do. Not sure about the end result but it's ok. Any time there is a center block that's 2" I'm going to fussy cut something in it!
How is everyone else coming along on their MBH3 blocks? It's so fun to see everyone's blocks on the Facebook page because, as I said earlier, color placement can really change the visual design of a block.
Now back to those temperature blocks!
Happy Quilting!
~Sharla
Mom gathered ideas from several sites to design an armchair caddie and I LOVE it! One of the sites she used as a guide was the same site I found my Ugly Duckling pattern. Lillyella has an armchair caddie called the Mini Maker Station. 
She did a great job of turning this Ugly Duckling fabric with monkeys on it into a beautiful Swan. She did it by fussy cutting just the green background and using the little pieces in the pieced half-square triangles. She did put a piece of the fabric for the lining of the thread catcher so you can peek inside to see the original fabric. This had to be the ugliest of all the Ugly Duckling fabrics brought for the challenge. I bought this piece as a back-up choice for a backing for my first grandson's baby quilt. Luckily, I found something better after this purchase! 
One of my favorite things about the caddie mom made is that she used a vintage appliqued placemat and napkin on the pockets on each side and on the pincushion. This embroidered flower on the placemat was where the napkin slipped in! Mom used it to hold a little pair of scissors. So creative!
Mom said she had to order the binding clips to find them in colors that matched the caddie. She also hunted to find pastel pearl-head pins to match the little pin cushion. And she tucked a vintage green seam ripper under the pin cushion and color coordinated the spool of thread. Now that's going the extra mile!
I can't wait to bind a quilt (one of my least favorite things) just to use my new caddie. Thank you mom for such a special gift!
