Airplane Maintenance

September is my favorite month in the year!  It's my birthday month, the weather is usually cooler and still sunny, and the leaves are starting to turn into a rich autumn tapestry. This picture is borrowed; it looks very similar to the stream behind my house. We hike along a deer trail in the woods, or drive to a spot further downstream which is a public park courtesy of William Penn. Yes, THE William Penn.  I live in Pennsylvania, after all, also known as Penn's Woods.

The fall foliage really kicks in mid-October. I will snap a few pics from the air in the next couple of weeks. My airplane will have its annual maintenance check at the end of September which hopefully won't cost nearly as much or take as long as last year. She likes this cooler weather. She leaps off the runway quickly and wants to float when we come in for a landing. [I am sighing, wishing I was flying right now!]

Hope you are enjoying the early hints of fall and a nice hike in the woods.

Began Carolina Crossroads

I was making such good progress on my UFOs that I let myself begin another project. <sigh> I know, I know. This year is supposed to be about finishing up, not making my To-Do list even longer.

But I really have accomplished a lot....

The little fox quilt is now a flimsy, ready to be quilted.

I finished another block for Colorado Sunshine (a/k/a Floribunda).

The Mocha Swirls quilt needs only 12 more blocks and I decided to just repeat some fabrics rather than buy more fat quarters. I resisted. My stash is big enough.

So....

I ordered orange fabric and a white with a soft gray print which arrived promptly from Connecting Threads.  Then I began cutting the blues in my stash and filled a box with various strips and blocks. Last night and today I sewed and ironed. Even after all that cutting, I will definitely need to cut more blue strips. It's unbelievable how many strip sets are required for this quilt!  Here is my inspiration:

Royal Flush Complete

Purple is a color associated with royalty, so I called this quilt "Royal Flush".  It was fun to pull out a variety of purples from my stash, a mixture of batiks, scraps from my daughter's toddler play clothes and a few new fat quarters from Connecting Threads.  This came together very quickly, but was on the back burner for a while as I finished other quilts.

I spent several hours last night hand-finishing the binding. After attaching the binding, do you sew the edge by hand or do you stitch it down?  Just curious what others do.  I like clean finish of a hand-stitched binding, but I imagine a machine-sewn binding is more durable for a child's blanket.  What is your preference?

Baby Baby

Remember that Amy Grant song "Baby Baby" that was so popular in the early 90s?

" Baby, baby
I'm taken with the notion

To love you with the sweetest of devotion

Baby, baby

My tender love will flow from

The bluest sky to the deepest ocean

Stop for a minute

Baby I'm so glad you're mine, yeah

You're mine

Baby, baby

The stars are shining for you

And just like me I'm sure that they adore you

Baby, baby

Go walking through the forest

The birds above a' singing you a chorus

Stop for a minute

Baby they're so glad you're mine, oh yeah

And ever since the day you put my heart in motion

Baby I realize that there's just no getting over you

Baby, baby

In any kind of weather

I'm here for you always and forever

Baby, baby

No muscle man could sever

My love for you is true and it will never

Stop for a minute

Baby I'm so glad you're mine "

I'm so glad my baby, my new quilt  Bali Sea Star  is done and mine to keep. This is a pattern from Kim Brackett's book "Scrap Basket Surprise".  Love at first sight!  I bought a couple packets of 2.5" strips of bright batik prints, some brown batik and basic cream neutral fabric from Connecting Threads.  It came out beautifully colorful and cheery, much more so than the Kim's version. The back is a brown and tan batik that was on sale.

Hope you are enjoying the last touch of summer before school kicks into gear. Students in my area began classes this week.  This is my daughter's senior year and I hope she has a fantastic year before beginning her college and adult years. Love ya, baby! (She's the one in the middle)

Coming Home

As much as we enjoyed our recent vacation, it was SO nice to come home again. This was a special vacation where we flew our airplane halfway across the country.  The trip west was cut short by weather before we reached our halfway point. Low clouds forced us to quickly find the nearest airport. Flying by instruments is tough and I'm not rated to fly in clouds yet.

But someone was watching out for us. We landed at a small town near Columbus, Ohio, and after one phone call we learned every hotel room around was booked due to a local music festival. A local B&B owner had phoned one of the chain hotels for referrals. And we were the ones referred. The owner not only picked us up at the little airport but also fed us dinner. We enjoyed a nice after-dinner walk around the grounds and pond, then a restful, quiet night in our room. After a delicious breakfast, the owner drove us back to the airport.

At the airport luck was with us again. One of the guys hanging around took us on a tour of the local aviation museum then drove us to a restaurant for lunch. After lunch the weather had cleared enough for us to leave. The flight to St Louis was amazing - ATC (air traffic control) routed us right over Lambert Field on our way to the west side of the city. The air was too hazy to spot the famous arch, but that was okay because we were ready to finish our flight.

We enjoyed a few days visiting with friend in St Louis and enjoying the city itself.  Then it was time to fly off to Oklahoma to spend a few days with family. Sandy's parents were so proud of their daughter that they wrote an article for the local newspaper, and Sandy gave rides to several family members. We even connected with our cousin Suzanne (her job is radio marketing; she writes the funniest radio ads!!!)

We left Oklahoma a day earlier than expected due to thunderstorms projected to swing through the northeast over the weekend. After stopping in Indiana at our halfway point where we stayed overnight with the CUTEST NEPHEW IN THE WHOLE WORLD, we had a nice flight back home, except for a rather challenging crosswind landing at one of our fuel stops.

Hubby did a great job helping with the crosscountry flying. We both had our GPS units plugged in, plus we had cellphones as backup. We spent our time trying to spot all the little airports in our path. All in all, we put a total of 25 hours on the airplane. Wow! No maintenance issues cropped up on my antique baby, either. Just a continuous habit of spewing a bit of oil across the underbelly, drip-marking her territory at each stop.

Flying just above the clouds over Pennsylvania

Quilting Update - I have been posting additional pics to the annual gallery pages and updating the UFO page. Check 'em out!  Also, I just received word that Royal Flush and Bright Bali quilts are ready for pickup. Two more UFOs finished [almost]!

Bittersweet Beauty Completed

Ah, yes. What a wonderful feeling to finish a quilt, especially one as lovely as this one. Bittersweet Beauty is bound and ready to be admired! I really like how the dark gold plays up the quilting without overwhelming the design.  Thanks again, Cindy Carrey of North Star Longarm Quilting Service.

Bittersweet Beauty Unveiled

Bittersweet Beauty has been quilted and is ready for binding!  This is one of my favorite quilts because the colors are so rich and the pattern was fun to do as a mystery quilt. The name is not indicative of a feeling about the quilt (I'm not bittersweet about anything!). The mystery quilt instructions suggested using Benartex's Bittersweet fabric line.  Instead, I pulled nearly all the fabric from my own stash. (Thanks, Mom, for augmenting my stash with fabric you found at an estate sale.)

Anyway, the inner border is a dark green so I plan to use dark green for the binding. When it's done, I will post another set of pictures, including the pretty backing. There wasn't quite enough of the backing fabric, so I added an inset of cream and leftover squares from fabrics used on the front. Thanks again to Cindy Carrey of North Star Longarm Services for the lovely quilting.