Binding Little Brother

 

Since access to my studio will be limited while the floor is being replaced, I'm getting the Little Brother quilt ready so I can work on SOMETHING when the guys are here.

The Next One

 

I've been sewing the blocks of Little Brother together. The big sections on the left are sewn together as is a big section at the upper right. I've been sewing the blocks in rows of seven blocks instead of one long complete row of fourteen blocks just because it's easier to wrangle. This might have a border, or not. I haven't decided yet. But I do have the backing on order.

A couple of weeks ago I got the brilliant idea of making a Christmas Quilt. So I ordered a bunch of Christmas themed fabrics, without really having a specific plan for them. They arrived yesterday, and I ran them through the washer and dryer.

The Christmas quilts and wall hangings I already have are red, green and white, with some gold. I don't have blues or other colors. It just isn't my thing, so I kept the fabrics I ordered in that range. I ordered some reds,

These can best be described as "multi's."

These are greens (duh).

And these are the whites and lights.

Some of these I found in my Christmas stash. It's pretty clear to me that a Christmas Macnas Quilt would work with these, so that's the next one.

I've actually got several Macnas themed quilt ideas floating around in my head.

So, Wordle. It's a puzzle. You have six tries to guess a five letter word. I like to start with a particular word. My current streak is 160. My win rate is 98%. I used to think I was pretty good, but a friend of mine consistently got the answer in fewer guesses than I did. Anyway, I don't care how many guesses I need as long as I solve the thing. 

What's really funny, is that I am MUCH MUCH better when I trust my gut. So I will put in my first guess, and the thing tells me if I have any letters that are correct. Then I have a standard second guess. I like knowing if I've got the vowels. What's funny is after that guess a word often pops into my head. I mean it just POPS! I don't know where it comes from. I have learned to trust it, because most of the time, that is the correct word. Sometimes I will consider the word that pops into my head, and look at the results in the game and my brain comes up with many other options (or it simply has no logical idea whatsoever) and I think, No, it couldn't possibly be THAT, and I will enter some logical answer only to be told it is wrong.

And then, when I give in and say, oh what the fart, I'm going to enter what my Gut says, and I do, and damn it, my gut was right.

You would THINK I would listen to said gut all the time. 

Nope. My BRAIN has to butt in and be all logical about it.

Today's World 1642, after my two guesses, my gut gave me a word, and I didn't listen. Fourth guess I enter what my gut's answer and it was right.

Too freaking funny.

Sew Me Up!

 

I've started to sew the Little Brother quilt together. It goes pretty quick.

Here is a detail so you can see some of the fabrics. The eggs are from the leftover backing of the Flight of Fancy quilt and the grey with the butterfly is from the leftover backing of the Partly Sunny quilt.

These are the extra yellows that DID NOT make it into the quilt. Pretty sure a Yellow Macnas quilt is in the not-too-distant future.

Owlfan wanted to know what I will do with the blocks that did not make the cut. Good question.

Normally I throw them in a box marked "Leftovers" for scavenging later. Sometimes I "harvest" fabric by unstitching it from its partner and using it again. Sometimes I use extra blocks in the backing of a quilt. I don't generally get all worked up about them. To me they are often simply "the cost of doing business."

~  ~  ~

OH! I have a funny story. My buddy Julie and I frequently exchange calendars we make of our quilts. She wrote to me asking me if I needed a calendar for 2026, then later I discovered she was planning a calendar of all her Macnas quilts for 2027...

"WAIT," I texted, "You are planning a 2027 calendar ALREADY????"

"Guilty as charged," she texted back. "...LOL, go ahead and laugh."

"In the great scheme of all that is Julie," I wrote back to her, "I have to say I am not surprised." 

(Julie always impresses me with her organization and planning. She actually has a list of quilts she PLANS to make and WHEN she is going to make them. Me, I normally have no freaking clue what I am going to do next much less when I am going to do it.)

Little Brother Grows Up

 

I did some power sewing to complete enough blocks to cover the design wall and then I put them up.

So this is what I ended up with. This is only okay. It needs a lot of work and fine tuning.

The next morning I gave it a good look and pulled out some blocks where I thought the gray was too light or not "gray" enough.

These are the blocks I removed. I loved the prints across the top, the floral print, the letters and the cream print. The ones on the bottom row were simply too light. Sometimes you have to "kill your darlings;" get rid of the things you love if they don't work. These didn't, so they had to go.

This isn't it, but it's getting closer.

More blocks got removed and new blocks replaced them.

Eight versions later, this looks to be it, and what I will sew together.

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 Gets Bigger

 

I have been having fun making pairs of yellow and gray. These are just tossed on the design wall willy-nilly. I can't really start designing the quilt until I have enough blocks to cover the design wall.

While you can't see it in the photo, a lot of the grays look very light, and I wanted to add a few middle-range grays, so I chose these. In the end I didn't use the second one from the left, because it looked closer to purple.

Since the quilt is supposed to relate the the Partly Sunny quilt, I set that quilt on the floor so I can look at the two of them together. I'm having a lot of fun. This won't take long.

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.

Partly Sunny - Partly Cloudy

Here are my golden yellow blocks.

Julie gave me a boxful of grays, and I added these from my own stash. I waned a few grays that had some extra colors in them. One of the things that makes Julie's Partly Sunny quilt so special is her use of a wide variety of grays - lights, medium and darks. So I made sure to add some light grays and some dark grays.

Here I have randomly set out the gray blocks on top of the yellows just to see if I have an equal (or close)   number of yellows and grays.

Next up: I get to play matchmaker!!