Slogging Away on My Aviatrix Medallion

One of the things I most wanted to work on this summer was my Aviatrix Medallion, started ages and ages ago and stalled after the fourth border.

These blocks involved some careful organization of the different colours. They were time consuming.

The end results were so delicious, though, and I could easily enjoy a quilt made just of these blocks.

It was then a time consuming step to follow the diagram (seen in the top right corner) to lay out each of the sides.

I just loved how they looked out once they were pinned to my design board.

 After I had Border 5 on I felt like I had some momentum going into Border 6. The blocks for Border 6,  however, were more challenging in the type of block (though the colour organization was much easier). 

I did a lot of chain piecing which was boring but efficient.

 I am now encountering an issue with Border 6. You see, a year ago I used a blue marking pen, which is removed by water, to mark all of the blocks as per the instructions in the pattern. The pen does come out when I wet the spots but when I use my iron they come right back. I am now feeling super paranoid that I am going to finish the huge, complicated, beautiful quilt and have all of these terrible pen markings! Any suggestions?? 

Border 6 sure does look nice, too, don't you think?

Border 6 has since been added to the quilt and now I have just the final, outer, 2.5" solid border strips to attach. Thing is, I could have sworn I bought backing for it but...no? When I went through my stash I found pre-determined backing for my Snails Quilt and my #QBTravellingQuilt but, alas, not my Aviatrix Medallion. Do I piece together some favourites? Invest in a single fabric for the backing (keeping in mind my very large purchases from my recent shop hop!)? Also, how am I going to quilt this beast? My friend C sent hers out to get quilted in an all-over design and it was beautiful- but do I want to do that?

Decisions, decisions, but it does indeed look like at least this top will be finished this summer!