Shoo Fly Garden Progress Update

I put my Shoo Fly Garden blocks up on the design wall to make it easier to prep new blocks without repeating fabrics, so I figured it's a good time to share a little progress report.

Before I show you what I have so far, here's a look at the quilt I'm heading towards (eventually).

Yes, there are wonky block corners. I'm too lazy to fix the mockup!

I have a tutorial for the Shoo Fly Garden block and another tutorial for doing appliqué with a ladder stitch, which is how I'm attaching the EPP flowers to their backgrounds. The throw size quilt I'm working on requires 154 blocks. So how many do I have?

As of today, I have 27 finished blocks, 39 flowers appliquéd to their backgrounds and awaiting corners, and 7 flowers sewn together, but not yet appliquéd to their backgrounds. That's a total of 73, which is close to half the blocks needed. I also have hexies basted for a few more blocks, ready for the next time we're on the road. 

This month, I basted hexies and stitched flowers while traveling to St. John's and back (twice) and at a church women's retreat. 

I had been using adding the snowball corners as one of my leaders-and-enders projects (the other is making stitch-and-flip flying geese for my Flying Together blocks), but I've slacked off on that lately because I used all the black squares I had cut. The WIPS-B-GONE challenge starts on October 1st, and I plan to make cutting out more squares one of my daily tasks right at the beginning of the challenge. Now that I see them all together, I'm excited to get back to turning these in-progress blocks into finished blocks!

Obviously, I'm still a long way from finishing my Shoo Fly Garden quilt, but that's fine by me. I designed this with the intention of it being a multi-year project and I'm in no rush to finish. Do you enjoy long-term, slow stitching projects?

WIPS-B-GONE 2026

It's that time of year - the annual WIPS-B-GONE challenge is open for registration! This is the 6th year for the free WIP-finishing challenge, and I'm excited to help motivate you to finish some long-standing projects (and to finish some myself!) 😊

What is WIPS-B-GONE?

It's two months to focus on making progress on your quilty works-in-progress (WIPs) with friends and some extra support from me. The challenge starts October 1st and runs until the end of November, so we'll have 61 days to work on those projects that have been sitting unfinished for too long.

Whether you have a collection of quilt blocks cut out, but not sewn together, or a stash of blocks finished, but not sewn into a quilt top, or a pile of quilt tops that need quilting, it's so much easier to use, display, or gift a quilt that's finished, so let's move some of them across that finish line!

Extra support to make it easier

When you sign up for the WIPS-B-GONE challenge, you'll get a link to download:

• a project list, so you can see at a glance which projects you plan to work on and check them off as you finish them
• a daily tracker (there are 3 to choose from!), so you can colour in an icon for each day you work on a WIP. The daily trackers are consistently one of the favourite parts of the challenge every year 😊
• graphics you can share on social media to show you're participating in the challenge and to invite your quilty friends to join us, too! The more, the merrier!

A daily tracker from a previous year

Monday Motivation

Along with the downloads, you'll also receive Monday Motivation emails all through the challenge to help you stay on track. Sticking with something for 61 days can be a challenge, and I hope these emails will be the extra dose of motivation you need to keep you going.

Community

If you're on social media, you can post your progress and use the hashtag #wipsbgone2026 so other participants can find your post and cheer you on. A challenge is more fun when you're doing it with friends!

Of course, you don't have to share on social media to take part in the challenge. Simply download your daily tracker, choose some WIPs, and make a little progress on them each day.

Finished the quilt top during WIPS-B-GONE 2024 - I'll still be quilting it this year

Are you in?

If you want to finish some quilts this fall, join us for WIPS-B-GONE 2026!