Fly by Night quilt

This is one of my earlier quilt designs, but I only just got round to making it. The idea came to me a couple years ago when I was flying somewhere at night. I'd been doing a lot of appliqué recently and was itching for an easy piecing project, so I finally got it cut, pieced, and quilted. I didn't even have to buy any fabric, since I'd had the stuff sitting around for ages!

It was a little odd to be working with just solids again, though I quite like the simplicity of it. And despite the pain of pivoting in the middle of the quilt, quilting it was fun. I love the texture of the straight quilting lines an inch apart, but I'm itching to build up my free-motion skills so I can do more. My sewing machine continues to be my BFF—the true miracle of dual feed is that you can use specialized feet when you're quilting, not just whatever foot is built into the walking foot. Pfaff's narrow-edge foot is fantastic for stitching in the ditch perfectly, and it's easy put on quarter-inch (finished size) binding when you can use a quarter-inch foot and the dual feed.

The quilt just happens to look smashing with the Pan Am bag the Other got me for my birthday last month. He also bought me a toiletry kit (to carry sewing bits) and some more airline cutlery:

We've found quite a bit more cutlery recently, but I haven't got decent shots of them yet. The Other found me a nice set of Braniff dishes and a few bits of silver, which I'll also have to get a picture of. And speaking of Braniff, he gave me another lovely airline bag for my birthday too:

I used it when the Mother and I hit PIQF and it made one of the vendor's day—I guess he had worked for Braniff back when, well, back when they existed. And the birthday joy just kept flowing as I filled the bag with fabric from the show care of the Mother's credit card. (She had to buy new luggage to get her own loot home, and it was quite a bit bigger than either of these bags.) Oh, and I think I made the Other buy me that narrow-edge foot as an early birthday present—I really am a spoiled brat. But thanks for a great birthday month, Other and Mother!

Now with all this airline paraphernalia, the Other and I may have to have a cheesy flight-themed dinner party—preferably wearing Space Bubbles.