Go Dog Go
May 2018

I don’t often do panel quilts, and I don’t often have UFOs, but this one ticked off both these boxes for me. I had found this flannel panel a few years back and thought it was too cute to pass up! I also figured it would be a super quick project. Oh, how wrong I was!

From the start, this gave me grief. The panel had a strange wonkiness to its shape and was not a true rectangle. It was longer along its center top-to-bottom axis. I tried to compensate with the addition of the navy blue side borders, and adding tucks here and there, but this only further exacerbated the issue. I became so frustrated because I couldn’t figure out a way to correct the wonkiness that I put it away. This is slightly out of character for me since I am a full subscriber to a ‘just fix it’ mentality.

When I learned about this year’s Hands2Help Charity Quilt Challenge needing baby quilts for the Little Lambs Foundation for Kids, it energized me to pull out this UFO and get it done. I added a seam in the top of the center block, just below the traffic signal, which helped shorten the center length, allowing me to remove the previous tucks I had done in an attempt to fix the misshapen issues. And while upon final inspection it is not perfect from a sewing standpoint, I think its vivid colors and playful design are perfect for a newborn.

The Little Lambs Foundation for Kids in Logan, Utah, provides comfort kits to children ages newborn to 17 years old who are transitioning into foster care, emergency shelter or who have been hospitalized.