Little Brother Macnas Quilt

 

The Little Brother Macnas quilt is back from the long arm quilter. I really like this quilt.

I love the quilting.

Here is the quilting as seen on the back of the quilt.

In case you don't know or can't remember, here is the Partly Sunny quilt, (made by Julie Sefton) which was the inspiration for the "Little Brother."

Little Brother Progress

I usually go to my Arthritis Swim class on Fridays. I had an appointment on Friday morning, and then I headed over to the Y. As soon as I got into the Women's Dressing Room, I was told I had to leave and use the Family Dressing Room next door. They weren't kidding. Somewhere a pipe had bust and was leaking into the Dressing room.

So I moved my stuff next door, and tried to find a locker to stow my gear and my big puffy winter coat. That wasn't happening. The only lockers available were the tiny ones. While I was hanging my coat on one of the rows of hooks available, I overheard one of the lifeguards saying they had had to notify the folks in the pool that they had to move their belongings. I started to wonder.

I looked down the hall to the entrance of the pool, I noticed a puddle of standing water. Back in the dressing room, I took off my shirt (I go to the Y already wearing my swimsuit under my clothes.) I thought for a minute. What was it going to be like AFTER the class was over, and twenty ladies were looking for places to change? The family dressing room did not have a sauna (a really great place to dry off after swimming.)

I decided I didn't need to be a part of that mess, so I put my clothes back on, got my coat, and went home.

Where I matched up more pairs, sewed them up and then tossed them on the design wall. I would have liked to have got more done, but at this time of the year the sun goes away mid-afternoon and given the temperature outside was 23 F and the windchill brought the temps down to  6F, and it was getting chilly in the studio.

Bear in mind, I haven't done any tinkering with the blocks on the wall. I just threw them up there. I'm happy in the direction this is going.

Happy Birthday Mary L!
 

Little Brother

 

After my pieces were all cut I had to see what they looked like, so I paired up a few and sewed them up.

I threw them up on the design wall, and it's clear this is going to work.

I took my Mom out shopping and then we had lunch. I showed her this quilt and when I said I wanted this quilt to relate to the Partly Sunny quilt she commented, "Like the new quilt is the little brother, right?"

Thanks Mom, for naming the new quilt.

When it Doesn't Work

 

I made a few gray and those jewel toned blocks and put them up on the design wall. I wasn't too thrilled. It would have been "okay" but nothing special. I always tell my students that when we get it right, we know right away. When it doesn't work at all, we usually know that too, but it's that in-between time when we are not sure that is the hard part. In this case it simply fell flat. 

So if I want to use the jewel toned colors of purple, blue and green, I'll need another color other than gray. Creams and whites with colors would also work, as shown above.

The grays with lights would work also, but I'm not much interested in making a mostly gray quilt.

This is a detail of Partly Sunny, the quilt Julie made for me. Yellows would be a great pair with the grays. It would also be a quilt I could use as a table quilt when I display the Partly Sunny quilt in the living room.

So I pulled warm yellows out of my stash, and will use those.

Now I am excited!

My Mother's Day

 Mother's Day was a good one for me. First I received this convo from an Etsy customer who bought one of my tutorials.

It's easy to forget that I have an audience of readers and what I write matters to them. It always makes my day when I get messages like this (and your comments do too!)

My son and his family sent flowers, and we had a nice talk later in the day.

My Mom and her friend Mike came over for dinner. It was so nice to have company! It was so nice to cook for the three of us. We had salmon and asparagus and raspberry sorbet for dessert. While my Mom and I have talked regularly during the pandemic, we weren't able to have long visits, so she hadn't seen the quilts I had made in the last year. We spent a long while looking at them, and talking about them. 

We talked a lot about Partly Sunny, the long distance quilt Julie made and I finished. I also told my Mom about how I had written the stories of the Waltzing Matilda, Goose Rocks Beach and All Together Now quilts and had given them to the recipients when I gifted the quilts. It made me realize that the story of Partly Sunny should have that treatment as well, so Julie and I will be working on that in the next few weeks. To that end I spent Sunday evening bookmarking all the posts both of us had written about the quilt so I could work out the quilt's timeline. Turns out Julie started collecting yellow and gray fabrics in 2015 with an eye to making a yellow and gray quilt sometime in the future, so the quilt's story is bigger than I thought.

My Mom asked a favor. "Can I have a quilt for my table? I'd like one for spring."

My Mom loves (and asks for) every quilt I make, so I told her I would be happy to LEND her one! She took Tutti Frutti home with her, and here it is, on her table in her apartment.

It was a good day.

Partly Sunny, Done in the Sun!

The Partly Sunny quilt is done, and here is in on a large rock in my neighborhood.

It's bigger than you think! It measures 56" x 67", and those HST's finish out at 3".

And of course it looks gorgeous on the back of my charcoal gray sofa!

Partly Sunny Binding & Review

I am hand sewing the binding on the Partly Sunny quilt. Regular readers know I sew mine down on the FRONT of the quilt, because I like it better and my hand sewing is very good. Can you see my stitches? You cannot. If you want to know what propelled me to this decision, you can read this post.

If you want more details about how I do my binding, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. It isn't just my hand stitching that makes my bindings successful. I will tell you everything you need to know.

In case you didn't notice in the photo above, the quilting on Partly Sunny is YELLOW!

By the way, I did not make Partly Sunny. My friend Julie Sefton did. You can read the quilt's story here. Be sure to read those posts, and make sure you read the comments I left.

How did I eventually get to be the owner of this quilt? It was something unexpected. Sorta. You can read that story here.

The story gets more interesting. I was preparing the backing when I made a startling discovery.
At the point, the quilt became a kind of collaboration. I love this quilt, and I love the story. I love my friend Julie.

Partly Sunny is Home!

I drove out to see Janet-Lee today and picked up the Partly Sunny quilt. I completely adore this quilt.

It CLEARLY needed to live HERE!

Here is part of the back folded over. I bought that fabric years ago, and this quilt was just the place for it.

Millie is in complete agreement.

The Final Firebird & More

I replaced the border on the Firebird quilt yesterday. This is much better than the wimpy yellow that was there before. This quilt is now ready for quilting.

 I also finished the backing for the Partly Sunny quilt.

Here is the Partly Sunny quilt lying on top of the backing. It is also ready for quilting.

I made a cake yesterday. I didn't use the right decorations. I used nonpareils (or "jimmies" as they are called here in New England) instead of "sprinkles." Sprinkles keep their color when they get moist, jimmies lose it. So when I put jimmies in the cake, the dye ran and the cake looks really weird. Instead of a white cake full of colored sprinkles, it is a funny colored cake. But that is only a "cosmetic" issue. The cake tastes great.

I don't usually make a cake with frosting, but with everything going on all over the world, I wanted to make a bit of something fun, silly and totally frivolous. A cake with sprinkles inside and out (yes, I wanted to recreate the "funfetti" cake, but from scratch) checks all the boxes.

 The big surprise I mentioned last week is that I traded in my car. This is the new one. While I was at the town hall transferring the license plates the clerk asked, "Is your car white?" I said yes. "Well, it says here the color is Blizzard Pearl, and I wasn't sure." It is white, it is pearl, and I think it's pretty as hell. (The old car is beside it on the left. That one was "Brown Sugar.")

It's in the Stash!

Now that I have cut up the backing for the Partly Sunny quilt, I need to add some fabric to what's left to make a backing for it.

Look what I found in my stash. I only have a yard of it, so I am going to need something else...

This is where investing in your stash pays dividends. I will use the grey leaves to fill out the extra space I need.

I needed two WOF (width of fabric) pieces to fit across the top of the quilt, so naturally I matched the print as best I could. (Because this is an example where just sewing two pieces together haphazardly would be SO WRONG.)

The quilt (on the left) is lying on top of the backing (at right.) Now, when the top edge of the quilt gets folded over for any reason, those grey and yellow flowers will interact with the HST's on the front.

You all know that's no accident, right?




HOW did you ever guess?

When The Universe Laughs at You

Have you ever been working on something and you look over and see something so freaking perfect it was as if it was MEANT TO BE and your only job is to put it together and take the credit. It might have been sitting there all along nudging your brain, but you had decided X and this was most assuredly Y and you were NOT GOING THERE because you had ALREADY DECIDED.

Well. The universe decided to have some fun with me the other day.

I was cleaning up in the studio and part of that is finishing some things so I can get them out of the way. The easiest thing for me was to prepare the gray fabric for the back of the Partly Sunny quilt of HST's that Julie had made. I got the backing ready, and then spread it out on the floor to trim the excess. Then I got up and took a look.

oh.

"Wouldn't this have made a pretty border?" I texted Julie. "But it's too late now. This is the quilt lying on top of the prepared backing."

"Why is it too late?" Julie replied, "Looks fabulous."

This was not what I expected Julie to say. "So you like it as a border? Right now there is 6" all the way around. I actually like it that wide. Let me try adding a bit of yellow in between..."

While I rummaged in the studio Julie texted back, "I like it at 6", now it looks finished."

I slipped some yellow behind the quilt and on top of the backing. As soon as I saw it I knew it didn't belong there.

"Nope" was Julie's response when I sent her the picture.

Glad we were in agreement, I went into the studio and cut up my backing and added 6-1/2" wide strips to each side of the quilt, making sure to line up the pattern on the border fabric so it all went in the same direction, giving the illusion the triangles are floating on top of it.

It's the strangest thing, though, how that wide gray really sets the quilt off so beautifully. Julie and I agreed that the binding would have to be the same as the border so it would disappear.

NOW all I have to do (you know, that pesky little "all") is find a backing for this and then I'll be good to go. For the record I loved the quilt before, but I REALLY love it now.

Gray and Yellow

For many years you couldn't buy gray fabric, but that has changed. I bought some to make a quilt years ago, but the fabric got shanghai'd into another quilt.

This flimsy, Partly Sunny, made by Julie Sefton, arrived at my house last month, but I've had too much going on to write about it. Julie designed the quilt back in November 2017, but she didn't sew it together this way because the thought of sewing 320 blocks one at a time was too daunting. You can read the story here. I fell in love with the original version, and was dismayed when she sewed the blocks in a different layout.

As often as we talk on the phone, I never told her what I thought of the original version until over a year later. Julie admitted she was not in love with her revised version, and several months later took the flimsy apart and reassembled it. You can read that story here.

I told her I loved the flimsy so much I'd give her money for it. (I'm pretty sure that went in one ear and out the other, but that didn't stop me from repeating it as often as I felt necessary.)

At the beginning of this year I made this flimsy, Geode, which, while it didn't thrill me, enamored Julie.

Now, Julie is my best buddy, and she and I have exchanged quilts, and even designed a few together, even though we live 1,127 miles apart (as the crow flies). There was only one thing to do. Put it in a package and send it to her. So that's exactly what I did, but I didn't tell Julie it was coming. I wanted it to be a surprise. It was. You can read about it here.

A few days later, Partly Sunny arrived on my desk. I had forgotten the HSTs were 3". All quilts are beautiful in pictures, and even better in real life. This one is no exception. I loved looking at the fabrics.

Over the weekend I made a trip to Quilted Threads and bought this lovely gray floral print. I'll use it for the binding, but I think I should get more and use it as the backing.

Quilty friends are the best.