Are You Ready to Tumble?

This is the title for Bonnie K. Hunter’s Leader and Ender Challenge 2015 and I am now ready having calculated and cut nearly 300 tumblers using my Dear Jane triangle ruler. I didn’t want to buy a new ruler and it works just fine

I love the look of the tumblers all stacked up ready to use, almost like a treble sized layer cake. The striped material came in fat quarter bundle and I didn’t know what to do with it but now it is perfect for this project as it unites the colours in the rest of the tumblers. Many of the fabrics in this quilt will be orphans from bundles I thought were out of place, or others that I bought when I first started quilting and really bought because they were cheap to get my stash started – not because I loved them! Some are the last pieces of fabrics I did like and all of them are more muted than I usually go for now, but…. I am on a mission to use up any fabrics that have been languishing in the stash otherwise it is a waste of resources. The once tidy stack is now jumbled up ready for piecing

Bonnie’s Leader and Ender Challenge is also about cutting down on waste and she clearly explains her motives in this post. She is also re-purposing a ruler – using a Dresden plate ruler to make tiny tumblers from a 2.5 inch strip! Mine are cut from a 4.5 inch strip so I will finish fairly quickly.

The idea, in brief, is to use the tumblers as bridging pieces of material between your projects when you are chain-piecing instead of a thread bunny and to avoid leaving long tails of thread that can clog up your machine. I have been making blocks for the RSC15 Challenge, The Block Lotto and improvised log cabin blocks for my second entry for The Global quilting Project 2015 so I have already put together nearly half of my tumblers.

It is going to be a large lap quilt for the settee as the one on there at the moment is a lightweight summer quilt in bright colours and I want a heavier warmer one in more muted shades, I have bought an old but good condition wool blanket from a charity shop for the wadding.

So I am using up neglected fabric, saving thread by using the tumblers as leaders and enders, re-using an old blanket, re-purposing a ruler, having a warmer quilt so I don’t put on the heating unnecessarily and making more than one quilt at the same time. If only I hadn’t given away my Nan’s treadle Singer sewing machine I could have saved electricity too!  I think that covers ‘Reduce, Re-use and Recycle’ pretty well, don’t you?