Christmas Spirit

I found this on quilting blog The Way I Sew It and wanted to share it with my blog readers. I play piano, too, although not to the skill level of this guy. Enjoy "Sleigh Ride" in 7/8 time.

My all-time favorite is "12 Days of Christmas" by Straight No Chaser.  Here is one of the many versions posted out there.

But here is a NEW song by Straight No Chaser with Kristen Bell. The video and fun lyrics will make you laugh!

Massey En Masse

As soon as I awoke on Friday, I looked up Bonnie's Clue 2 for Allietare mystery quilt. After a couple hours cutting fabrics for Allietare and continuing work on my Orange Blossom quilt (based on Bonnie's Orange Crush pattern), I was ready to sew.  I am happy to report that all 20 sets of "headless geese" are done along with the cutting of neutral, black and gray. All I need to do to finish up is to sew the neutral rectangles to those "headless geese".

It was great to work on both quilts at once, each acting as leader-ender projects for the other. I am trying to decide if I want to put the Orange Crush blocks on point as Bonnie designed or lay them out as a straight set.  The first makes a straight grid and the latter makes a diagonal grid (opposite what you would expect).  I prefer the the diagonal grid. The straight set requires more blocks while the diagonal set requires some half blocks to fill in the side triangles.  The limiting factor is the constant blue print used in center of the whirly block and there is only enough for 32.  So it will work out as a 8x8 square quilt. I can always add a print "bar" across the top and bottom to extend the quilt and echo the bar in the outside border. Or not. At least the name of this quilt made itself known - Orange Blossom - from the orangey "flower" blocks. Progress so far:  22 blossoms, 16 whirlys.

On Sunday, hubby and I flew to Massey Aerodrome for their annual Christmas party. The weather was great with low wind and a touch of haze. That means everyone in the area decided to fly in, too. There were over 200 airplanes on the field!  We were parked in rows near the hangers and on the crosswind runway and along the taxiway next to the active runway. There were RVs (the home-built aircraft, not campers), Sonex, a Kitfox, FIVE Cessna 170s including mine, 3 Cessna 195s, several 140s, several Bonanzas, several little bi-planes, three ultralights, a gyroplane, a V-tail Bonanza, an Eurcoupe, a Stationair, numerous Aeroncas, Cubs, Luscombe,s Citabrias, and a Stearman, Many of us stood atop the hill and watched as many as 12 airplanes in the pattern lined up to land. Then we walked the field to check out the various aircraft. They even had an antique car section next to the DC3.

The really interesting part of our trip was the clear deliminator line over the haze layer at 1200'. We flew above the haze and saw a sharp line between upper sky and the haze layer. Okay, I'm not describing it very well, but I had never seen anything quite like it. Very cool!

Later that day, my daughter dropped by for a visit (hmm, she should be studying for finals!) and free food.  It was nice to catch up with her. We see less and less of her as she stretches her wings, learning how to live independently of us.

Thankful for Allietare

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!  Even though I was visiting family over the holiday week, I was anxiously awaiting Clue 1 of Bonnie Hunter's Allietare mystery quilt. And Bonnie came through once again with lots of pieces, starting off with hundreds to make in the first clue. I had planned to make only half of the parts then decide after the reveal if I wanted to complete the full size. But I started cutting and cutting, and pretty soon had all the parts ready to sew. I sewed half yesterday and will finish the rest this week. Allietare!

During our visit with family in the midwest (a mere 22-hour drive away), we went to a wine-tasting event. The new winery owner, an energetic local attorney named Mary, gave a personal tour of her tasting room and event center. She had lined the walls with wood slats reclaimed from lots of old barns in the area. Many of the furnishings were collected from old buildings and hotels around the state. The vintage they served had lots of promise. Once they are licensed to actually sell their wine, I will have to visit again and buy some.

The guys were more interested in the vintage Chevy truck. Go figure....

Sewing and Sari

Did you know Veteran's Day (November 11) was also the festival of Diwali celebrated in India?  My office has a lot of contractors from India, so we celebrated with a buffet of tasty Indian dishes. Several of the contractors gave a presentation about the festival and traditions. Diwali essentially is like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into a multi-day festival.  Many of the ladies wore a beautiful sari.  I wore a decorative teal-colored dress bought in Tunisia, the most exotic outfit in my closet. It was much simpler than a sari but the ladies were gracious and appreciative of my attempt to dress up for the occasion. Here is a sample of one of the lovely outfits:

Unfortunately, the project I was working on has been put on hold, so now I am interviewing for my next position. Hopefully it will be within the same company. It's a bit nerve-wracking right now.

At least I have been accomplishing quite a bit in my sewing. I finished a few more blocks for Orange Crush, another set of hamburger potholders, the backing for Mother Earth (16-patch and pinwheels)

a new lunch bag

and a special cardinal potholder for my mother-in-law who loves those birds.

I also checked my stash to be sure I am ready for next week's Allietare clue.

In the meantime, I'm trying to exercise more for fitness and stress relief. Fitness, right.  Okay, for weight loss. Ugh. I'm at my highest weight ever and have finally figured out that I cannot eat myself thinner....I have to exercise.  When daylight savings time kicked in, suddenly it was too dark to take long walks in the evening. Oh, who am I kidding? I stopped those long walks two months before the time change. Okay, maybe posting a selfie on the fridge might bring the motivation. I miss that Barbie bod of mine. It's scary how easy it is to add those inches!

Orange flowers and Allietare

In the early morn while my mind was free-flowing and not quite awake, I had an epiphany about my Orange Crush quilt mentioned in my previous post.  Rather than all those green squares, let's make the orange into a flower rather than a plus sign. After finally waking up and starting my day, I sewed a few sample blocks.

BEFORE

AFTER

Definitely better!  I got excited again and made even more:

This weekend Bonnie Hunter announced the colors of her new mystery quilt Allietare.  I should have just enough of the colors in my stash to make a 1/2 size quilt. After the big reveal I can decide to go shopping or just finish up.  In the meantime, gotta finish some gifts in between working on Orange Crush!

On a higher note, 90 Bravo is out of the maintenance shop and flying again!!! My hubby and flew down the Chesapeake to have lunch at a local airport diner. It was a beautiful fall day, cool and bright with fall foliage. This is a picture I borrowed but cannot seem to find the photographer to give proper credit. This looks like one of the roads near my house.

Orange is for Halloween

The pieced border for Mother Earth (see previous post) is done. It's not yet added to the too-short backing, but that will be easy to do tomorrow. To celebrate, I ....um....started another quilt. Yes, another quilt for my UFO list. I know, I know.

See if you can guess which pattern this is:

Remember all those 2" dark green squares I ripped apart from the too-dark sashing of Grand Illusion?  I finally found a use for them!  Furthermore, I am able to make this entire quilt from my stash!  This new quilt is a Sandy-altered version of Orange Crush, a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt from 2005. I found an example on the web (and now cannot find it again to give proper credit) where the crafter substituted light blue / dark blue for Bonnie's black/red squares and used one print for all the Friendship Star centers. It's a bright, cheery quilt that gets me all excited!

My family knows I am not crazy about the color orange. So why have I made so many quilts with orange?  Maybe because orange complements the greens and blues I do like.  Below are just a few I have made. The first one was a gift to my brother who does like orange.

Orange quilt #1 - Modern Chevron

Orange quilt #2 - Halloweenie

Orange quilt #3 - Broncos Crossroad

Orange quilt #4 - Celtic Solstice

It's amazing how many different orange, peach, gold, and dark rust prints I had in my stash. This is going to be fun!

Mother Earth News

This one has been a long time coming.  (drum roll please) I finally finished the flimsy of the quilt "Mother Earth"!!!!  The earthy greens, tans and brown inspired the name. Pattern is by Mary Robertson. Bonnie Hunter could claim it, too, but I followed the directions (mostly) published by Mary.  Backing will be a brown flannel from Connecting Threads. It is an alphabet print with green tones. My longarmer is busy through Christmas so it will be completely finished early 2016. One more UFO completed!

UPDATE:  Okay, so it's not really completed. I needed one moment to feel relief that this simple quilt which has so long languished in my pile is now ready to be longarmed.  However, it's not exactly ready. There isn't quite enough backing material, so I am planning to channel Elizabeth Hartman and piece an insert to extend the backing and make it "pretty".  I should be able to do it this week.