Piece By Number's Design Notebook - Sisters and Brothers Blocks

Below are just a very few of the possiblities offered by our Big Sister, Little Sister and Big Brother, Little Brother block designs. I haven't even started playing with sashings and on-point sets! Experiment and see what you come up with.

For scrap quilts or those with big busy prints, keep things simple by NOT separately piecing the optional diagonally-divided rectangle pieces. The additional diagonals add lots of movement and more interesting layout possibilities, but take care not to let things get out of control!

IMPORTANT NOTE: Many of the designs below use a somewhat different placement of the colors in the alternate blocks. In other words, although the blocks may look identical at first glance, study any design carefully before you start cutting fabric and sewing blocks for a whole quilt!

Sweet Sisters Light, bright spring colors make this a very sweet quilt. Try it in 1930's repro prints, too.	Butterfly Sisters A simple set, this quilt is named for the peach, aqua and turquoise "butterfly" shapes between the "sisters".
Country Brothers For a scrap quilt, use a simple layout without the optional diagonally-divided rectangles.	Brothers of the Southwest Soft, muted colors keep this layout from becoming overwhelming.
Big Sister, Little Brother Block combines large-scale "Broken Dishes" and small-scale "Square and Triangle" (pattern not available on-line)	Circus Family Same Big Sister, Little Brother block as at left, but in a different set with brighter colors.
Three Sisters Note addition of 3rd smallest scale "Broken Dishes" in the block (pattern not available on-line)
By the way, there's no particular reason the Sisters block is based on "Broken Dishes" (which might actually be better for brothers!), or the Brothers block is based on "Square and Triangle". So choose your blocks based on your preferences, not necessarily their names, and have fun. :-) Click here for Big Sister, Little Sister block. Click here for Big Brother, Little Brother block. Back to Design Notebook Table of Contents

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