Whew, Big Brother arrived just at the right time, with a few days to go before the ATS QAL quilts were due to be submitted (if you wanted to try and win more fabric that is, and who wouldn’t want that? ;o) )  I finished piecing the back on Baby Brother before packing him up to go on his holidays next week, and then I did some serious scrubbing of my kitchen floor so I could baste it (yes mum, I can see you cringing, but it got swept, hoovered and mopped AND I put a duvet cover down to protect it)  My knees have just about forgiven me now…

Whilst the floor was drying, I started to read the manual for Big Brother.  I learned what a few things are, how to use certain features and how to thread the thing (although I cannot get the automatic needle threader to thread!  It did it once, and then seemed to decide that that was quite enough for one weekend…)  Nothing daunted, I cut a piece of leftover front fabric, back fabric and batting and worked out how to attach the walking foot.  This morning I did a whole 2 practice lines on this baby quilt, and then proceeded to quilt the entire ATS quilt this afternoon, before binding it this evening after dinner – phew!  I’m quite certain I couldn’t have done this on Baby Brother, I would never have got the volume of quilt through the throat to be able to quilt it, and the pivot feature on Big Brother is fab!

Anyway, without further ado (and forgiving the furry watchfuls and odds and sods around my sofa)  here is the finished quilt.  I hope to get better photos at my gran’s after I give it to her, but since her birthday isn’t until November, I wouldn’t be waiting on the edge of my seat for them if I were you ;o)  I promise it lies completely flat, I’m just not that good at spreading it out, and my sofa is too small to show it all!

Moving on, you may recall that I recently posted about getting some Rural Jardin by French General for Moda, and that it now having gone into fabric history was somewhat rare.  Well, the lovely Benta at SLIKstitches contacted me after that to say that she had some scraps of it that she no longer wanted, and would send me.  They arrived yesterday, so now I shall have to carefully plan how to use it all:

And if that wasn’t enough, she also indulged my warped sense of humour and named a new quilt made of chopped up nine-patches out of flowery material, Flower To The Power Of Nine, after my suggestion.  Yep, that would be my maths geek coming out (and I hadn’t even been drinking that night…)

Finally, Susan, at Canadian Abroad, is having a giveaway of 8 FQs of Punctuation, by American Jane for Moda, so pop over and join in.