Minky Rules, Orange Peels, Omniscient Lady Pirates and Low-Volume Postage Stamps

...being a foray into all-over quilting pattern, with some success, and also Minky backing for which, it develops, there are Rules.

In my Big Excel Doc of Ideas and Scribbles, I had come up with a pattern I was calling Switchback, with repetitive squared off loops...and for a few of those loops, I continued the color onto the back, as you can see here in the far right two versions:

I was showing some of my plans to a couple of folks and my friend the Cap'n looked over my shoulder and declared, 'That one.  I like that one."  And to my surprised question, "The Switchback?"  she replied, "No, the back of it." And voila! (or perhaps that is "Argh!") A quilt is born.

Tractor Cozies, Dental Aprons, True Blue Swoons, and the Big Five-Oh

….it ain't heavy; it's my brother's birthday quilt.  Well, actually, it IS heavy.

Some few weeks ago, I consulted via email with my most senior brother, Hercules "TVC15" Reflux, about what kind of quilt someone might want, if someone were to be turning 50 soon, and happened to know someone else who was in the quilt-making business.  This is the brother, by the way, who introduced me to "Space Oddity" and also to the loud, stupid joys of punk, in its heyday; who, the night before I precipitously went to work in Alaska all summer when I was 19, asked no questions about my incredibly poor planning, but trotted me right out to SportMart to buy me a tent.  And who came with me to Alaska the following year.  Who decreed that I should wear a shirt bearing the legend "Jail Bait" when partying with his rugby team when he was in college despite the fact he wasn't letting me talk to any of them anyway; and who is always up for a long bike-ride, for helping to move your heavy furniture, or for acting as an excellent, canny straight man in the continual comedy routine that is my siblings' dynamic.  He's smart, he's funny, he's got a heart o gold and is genuine, salt-of-the-earth good people.  I mean, he's my big brother.  I LOVE the guy.

Anyway, to the question of quilt preferences, Herc responded, in his inimitable way: