An Ugly Patch

I had some fat quarters with interesting designs. I elected to make some flying geese using the 4 at a time method.  You can read about this method by many sources.  There are many great tutorials.  Frankly it is an ingenious method!

So I made my flying geese.  While the fabrics matched, I just didn't like them. I mastered a technique, but my resulting blocks left me underwhelmed.  I stabbed them through with a pin and put them on my design board so they would taunt me to giving them a purpose.

I have a wonderful bamboo bed cover that I bought several years ago at Tuesday Morning.  It is much used.  It is the perfect summer weight that gives you a cover, but does not make you hot.  Over the years, there have been some worn spots in it.  I had bought some linen/cotton fabric to make a large patch to cover up several, but ended up using this to cover my ironing surface.

As I was at my sewing machine looking at my board, it occurred to me that these 3x6 ugly geese were in a complementary color scheme to my holey-coverlet.   So I affixed the patches with wonderful results.  My orphaned patches found a home, and I really like how they look on my comforter.  I affixed them with a blanket stitch, and frankly did not exercise all that much care given the high utility of the coverlet, and its generally shabbiness!

I can see that more undesirables will make it to this coverlet.  I also had some ugly fabric in a 2.5" strip.  While ugly on its own, I used it to fix a raveling edge of a towel.

So for ugly fabrics, strips, blocks, etc....consider them as a means to upgrade 'stuff' around your house that is shabby but with a little repair, can keep their utility with possibly an improved aesthetic you didn't think possible.