UFO Marathon!

Last fall I met Barbara Arnold, a fun person and amazing quilter and teacher.  She put me on her mailing list, and recently announced that she was going to run a UFO Marathon.  Count me in!  I met some very fun and talented quilters, had the opportunity to see some gorgeous quilts-in-progress, and made serious headway on a project that's been in the works almost since I started quilting about 5 years ago.

I'll bet you don't remember my Otsego Lake quilts.  That's OK -- I kind of forgot about them myself.  I started them 4 years ago.  Over-ambitious and under-experienced, they have been a bit of an albatross.  Time to get these puppies going!

I'd been using the flying geese in these quilts as leaders/enders for a while.  With the UFO Marathon looming, I sat down and tried to complete all that I needed before the Big Day.  Success!  (except that I needed to order more fabric to get the number that I need).  My marathon supplies included some 500 completed geese as well as the various-sized squares needed to complete the blocks.

 In almost 12 hours of marathon sewing, many corner squares were sewn to flying geese.  Many geese were sewn to center squares.  And about a dozen blocks where actually completed!  Barbara was so encouraging.  You say these are quilts for a cabin where make-do is the rule?  Where "interior decorating" means unloading some old furniture from home?  Forget the wonky flying geese.  Just sew them and move on.  Thank you, Barbara!

Motivated, I pressed on (so to speak).  After a week, I had nearly 30 blocks done.  You can see them at the back of my sewing table.

 

By the end of the week, I just couldn't stand it anymore.  Pressed and (occasionally) trimmed, the subunits went back into the drawers of a nifty storage bin that I'd found last summer.

Then came the blizzard!  Last Saturday was a snow day for everyone along the mid-Atlantic coast.  Time to REALLY finish a UFO!

Back in April, as I was trying to re-boot this blog, I posted about a pillow top that I had named Michigan Star.  It sat for a while as I pondered that it was really too big for a pillow.  So on Saturday morning, as the snow came down (and sideways), I added batting and backing and quilted it with gold metallic thread.

The quilting lines radiate out from the center.  I added a star in the center square.

 A UFO completed and serious progress toward the two twin-sized quilts for the cabin.  Quite a week!