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In the off-season, chasers watch lots of tornado videos and update their equipment, and sometimes ... they make quilts! OK, not very often. But after several months of work, I finished a quilt with a tornado theme that I've named "Oklahoma Spring."

Once I decided on the theme and selected fabrics that I thought would work for the fields, sky and tornado, I had to lay out the 2,500 2" squares on the floor, then sew them together row by row.	When the top was together, I sewed on borders and pinned the top to the batting (the fluffy layer in between) and the backing. I then attached the layers with big basting stitches and began the painstaking process of hand-quilting the monster. I'm estimating that I used about 300 meters' worth of thread (one and a half spools).

Here's the final result. Of course, these things never look as detailed and colorful on the Internet as they do in real life. But it was a pleasure ... and a relief ... to finish the quilt.