Eye Candy

I had promised to share more pics of quilts. Here are a few quilts I have actually FULLY finished:

1. Many Fish in the Sea. This was a gift for my daughter when she finished middle school. This was the first quilt I sent to be quilted on a longarm. She quilted it with a lot of ocean-like swirls. The pattern is from Sally Schneider's Scrap Mania book.  The kiddo picked out most of the prints. We went with red, blue, tiger, rainbow, dog, cat....channeling my favorite book from Dr. Seuss. I even made a matching pillow sham.

2. Hound Dog. This was a gift for a co-worker who was pregnant with her son. I found a cute charm pack of dog-themed prints and made up my own pattern. I free-motion quilted dog bones inside each square. The sweet yellow lab is my dog, Jessie. 

 3. Anchors Away. This is another gift for my daughter who is obsessed with anchors. Connecting Threads had featured a nautical line of prints with lots of anchors, so I snatched up a bunch of half yard prints. I was able to sew this secretly to surprise my daughter when she finished her first year of high school. She was absolutely thrilled!  I free-motion quilted little anchors inside each triangle, and a large anchor in each large white diamond. I added her name in the corners and on the back. This was SO much fun to quilt!

4. Mystery Quilt 2011 from Quilters Club of America. I found some cheap fat quarters from Wal-Mart and followed each step. I ended up splitting the blocks and making two quilts. One is finished and the other is in my ever-growing To-Be-Quilted pile. That's what is so amazing about the above quilt - that I actually enjoyed quilting it. Anyway, this version went to my mom who loves it, ignoring my "folksy" orange peel quilting and crazy leaves border. The pattern is "Worms and Jelly Rolls" [I didn't care much for the name] and can be found on quiltersclubofamerica.com.

5. Orange Crush Chevrons. This was a birthday gift for my brother which will probably end up being used by his son Sammy who was born this year. The pattern is free at bonjourquilts.com. What is amazing is that I could not stand the color orange, but this quilt made me see the error of my ways. I set a personal speed record with this one - 5 weeks!

Celtic Solstice Clue 5

Clue 5 arrived on Friday for Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice. After a couple hours flying to feed my soul, I was able to feed my creative spirit in some sewing. And playing with the blocks.  Check out my latest guesses.

Then the right side of my brain clamored for attention.  If Bonnie designed a straight set, a 75 x 75 quilt will have 625 of those little 3.5 inch squares. That means we have 112 more to go.  If Bonnie designed a diagonal set....we need a lot of triangles. [I didn't want to work hard on those calculations today).

When Monday comes, I will link to Bonnie's Monday link-up page....
http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2013/12/mystery-monday-link-up-part-5.html

Bonnie asked us to blog about what we are learning or experiencing as we work on this mystery. I learned to follow Bonnie's instructions carefully, especially her advice about maintaining a perfect 1/4 inch seam. I finally cut up an old credit card and scotch-taped it to my machine bed. When cutting fabric for clue 5, I tried the Inklingo suggestion of a 3.5 x 4.25 rectangle, but I quickly learned pinning two pieced triangles to the blue rectangle was more trouble that it was worth. Back to the traditional method for me!  By the way, Sally Schneider calls this particular block "Mary's Triangles". See my Eye Candy post; this reminds me of my daughter's Fish quilt.

On a higher note....hubby and I did some flying on Saturday. A group of us planned to pop in to N40 Sky Manor for lunch. I called up a buddy and got him to join us in loose formation. Two Cessna 170s. What a sight!  We stopped off at 9N1 VanSant to see if the Stearmans were out. Only a few brave motorcyclists were huddled around the shack. Too bad - it was a beautiful day, just a bit of bumpy air.  Then we hopped over to Sky Manor to learn that the restaurant was closed. We opted for Plan B and returned home to drive in town for Mexican food. Yum! Hopefully next time I will remember to use my camera and share the aerial views.

In the meantime, check out the group of us who flew a P-51 this summer. It was an awesome experience!

Here's to the Loot

This is a stock photo of a Cessna 170 (not mine) on a campout. That's what I would truly love to do right now. Fly somewhere warm, camp out under the stars, enjoy the outdoors. Instead I am shivering in the east coast chill, dreaming about flying and trying to focus on work (but not doing it justice today).

Check out what my mother sent me!  Love the quilt design!

One of the gifts I received from my husband this year is the Amelia watch from Abingdon. It's beautiful and has an E6B slide rule built in to the outside dial. I am not exactly proficient with the standard E6B from my private pilot training, so maybe this will give me the incentive to figure it out.  If anyone else has this watch, let me know what you think of it. It is a rather large watch for a woman and quite heavy, so I am not sure I should keep it or use it every day. This picture has a leather strap and mine has a metal strap so maybe that's why it is so heavy. Anyway, it is a REALLY nice gift from my sweet hubby.

Holidays and Celtic Solstice 4

I am happy to report more progress on Celtic Solstice, finishing clue 4 last night. The rich greens and oranges look beautiful together. I can't wait to see the finished result! Check out the progress of other quilters who linked to Bonnie's website.

Before

After

Many of my fellow quilters have posted guesses on the final design. I figure Bonnie will have two more steps before we will really know what she designed for us.  Thankfully this step was easy enough to finish so I can FINALLY wrap presents.

Links to my favorite guesses:
http://piecenquilt1.blogspot.com/2013/12/celtic-solstice-part-4.html
http://www.talesfromparkdrive.blogspot.com/2013/12/snow-day-sew-day-celtic-solstice-clue-4.html
http://www.intrepidmeredith.com/2013/12/celtic-solstice-mystery-quilt-part-4.html

Congratulations to my daughter for swimming well at last Friday's swim meet! It was a treat to be allowed to come to one of your meets and watch you swim. You had banned me because I cheered too loud for you? That's silly!  This time I kept my mouth shut and urged your father to cheer instead.  So can I come to the next one?  I will only yell a little bit. Maybe.

On a higher note, my family enjoyed a wonderful Christmas party with fellow pilots at our local airport. Santa arrived in an airplane, giving all the little kids a fun treat. Who is behind that beard?  Why, it's my favorite flight instructor!

It's Bonnie Hunter time!

Like every other quilter in the free world, I am participating in Bonnie Hunter's 2013 Mystery called Celtic Solstice.  Thank you, Bonnie, for giving us so many FREE patterns and mystery quilt programs!  

And thank you for making Step 3 easy to complete so we can go back and catch up on the first two steps.  As you can see, I am using Bonnie's suggested colors and color arrangement. Only a handful more pieces to sew and I am caught up.  Until the next step. Below is a link to Bonnie's linky page for this quilt.

Celtic Solstice Step 3



I looked around the house and found that I have completed (or nearly completed) two quilts based upon Bonnie Hunter designs and am working on FIVE more including Celtic Solstice [not counting the handful of Sisters Choice blocks from two years ago]. 



Star Struck

Chunky Churndash



Crabapple Trees

Blueberry Hill



Colorado Sunshine



Lady of Lake Erie

1. Star Struck - completed

2. Chunky Churndash - ready for quilting

3. Crabapple Trees - wall hanging, needs final border and quilting

4. Floribunda (aka Colorado Sunshine) - need 22 more blocks

5. Jamestown Landing (aka Blueberry Hill) - 1/3 done

6. Lady of Lake Erie - many more blocks to go

7. Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt - completed step 3

After I finally finish the above quilts, I want to start on Smith Mountain.  And Nifty Thrifty, Pfefferneuse, Roll Roll Cotton Boll, and...  Can you tell I like Bonnie's designs?

Oh wait, I also need to complete several other quilts in progress (1860 Revival, Red Cross, and Royal Flush). And maybe I should put together a couple more baby quilts. My new nephew Sammy may need a third quilt from Aunt Sandy. Or my daughter may need a fourth quilt. I will have to post pictures of her three beauties.

On a higher note....It's winter and the weather hasn't been the best for flying. I work full-time so the weekends are my chance to "escape the bonds of earth". But several of my other pilot friends have been flying.  Congratulations to Jimmy on passing his commercial pilot checkride! Congratulations to Carl, my hubby, on his third solo! [Just don't damage my airplane.]

Introduction

Hello everyone! One of my goals for 2014 is to begin my own blog, so I decided to create one now and set up the design, like an introduction to the new me. 

So, to introduce myself…. My name is Sandy. I am a private pilot and a quilter, among other things, thus the name of my blog “Sew High”. No, I do not condone recreational drugs, just wanted to celebrate and combine my love for flying with my love for quilting. 

Yep, I am a pilot. That’s a major accomplishment for anyone, but especially for a woman. I learned to fly in Colorado in 1998, then moved to the east coast. As a new mommy I only had time to stare wistfully at the sky. After 14 years of motherhood, I finally had some free time for myself, so I dusted off my logbook, paid for some recurrent training and here I am! I even bought a 1955 Cessna 170B last year and flew my family on a vacation last year. Awesome! 

I also love to quilt. Boy, do I love to quilt! I have more than 20 projects going at the same time. Well, six active sewing projects and a bunch of tops waiting to be quilted. I never sew the same quilt pattern twice, always looking for a new challenge to try. Watch for posts about my ongoing projects and celebrate with me when I finally finish one. 

Thanks for checking out my blog!
Sandy