Velocity Quilt – a 2025 UFO Challenge Finish

My guildmate Jandi Dean is running a UFO challenge this year, with participants asked to select 6 projects to finish before the end of 2025. I selected a variety of UFOs for my list, including a small bag, two projects that are still in the piecing stage, and three quilt tops to be quilted and finished. I’m happy to report that I can check off my first item!

This is the Velocity quilt, an unreleased pattern by my friend Bobbie Gentili/Geeky Bobbin. While the pattern would work well with many fabrics, Bobbie specifically designed it to take advantage of ombre prints, and the cutting is done in a specific way to maintain the overall effect.

Bobbie designed this pattern quite a while ago, and back in 2020 I helped her with early editing and quilt mathing. At that time, she asked if I’d like to make one as a test — and since this was in the early covid days and I was home a lot, I said sure! She sent these lovely Christina Cameli ombre prints from Maywood Studios for me to use, and I put together the quilt top over the course of a week or two.

(Since this was 5 years ago, these fabrics are now hard to find, but I’m sure you could use any of the currently available ombre options on the market.)

With the quilt top done, I put it on the shelf while Bobbie continued to work on the pattern, but obviously life intervened — for both of us! Bobbie has put this pattern on the backburner so it’s not currently available, and the quilt top sat on my shelf for nearly 5 years until I added it to this year’s UFO list!

For Mother’s Day this year, one of the things I asked for was a few hours of longarming time that day. I wasn’t sure what I was going to work on, but when the time arrived, this quilt top was the one that needed the least amount of prep, so it’s the one I chose! As a member of the Longarm League, I had just received this new free-to-members pantograph called Liquid, and decided to try it on this quilt.

The rows of this panto nest rather tightly, and that presented alignment challenges each time I advanced the quilt. I hadn’t expected that, so it was a good learning exercise. I’ve developed some techniques to counteract the “shrinkage” that occurs (where the quilt tends to pull inward as it is quilted), but this quilt also drove me to learn how to use the “tweak” feature on my Intelliquilter. This allows me to slightly adjust the pantograph itself with each pass, which means a better overall result. This will definitely come in useful if/when I tackle more challenging pantographs.

I’m happy to have one of my 2025 UFO Challenge items finished! Hooray!