A new year...

I almost finished this little quilt before the year's end, but didn't rush to complete it.  It had been loaded on the longarm for quite a while, and I didn't think I needed to rush the finish.  I got the top last year from the sell off of a departed friend's stash.  I decided to make it a sampler of fills.  Owing to my insecurity about my freehand quilting, I used a thread that blends into the plain print squares.  There is a lot of texture in the whole quilt.  I'll be taking it to the Phoenix retreat for show & tell.  

I've been watching Pan Am, and while the show is less than stellar, it's brought back a lot of memories and made me wax nostalgic.  My mother was a "stewardess" for a small Brazilian airline and told me stories of dirt runways with dangerous termite mounds when aviation was still in its infancy.  Later she worked for Pan Am in Sao Paulo as a PBX operator and I have a few items from her time there.  

 The key chain is the most prized in my large collection of advertising key chains.  The lighter was well used for many years...by both my mother and I.  My, how times change...ushering in 2012!