Sunday Stitches: A quick and easy Tumbler

I’m officially smitten with die cutters. I have no interest in owning a machine, but after spending 45 minutes with the one at Island Quilter (back in early July) and walking away with over 250 cut Tumbler blocks, I was over-the-top enfatuated.

I loved being able to use up all the extra fabric from Curious Nature (Parson Gray). Adding in a couple solids, plus really big (6″ finished) pieces and it’s all coming together quickly.

I really think a scrappy apple core quilt is in my future.  Or maybe a drunkard’s path. As long as I don’t have to hand-cut a zillion curved pieces, I’m all in.

A quick and curious nature

Saturday I started on Alex’s quilt. I’ve had the pattern and fabrics for a few weeks, but I knew this was going to be his quilt for months.  Alex is my nephew,  and a sweeter, smarter child you would be hard pressed to find (with the possible exception of his brother and a whole bunch of cousins, of course!)  Both the fabric and pattern are “Curious Nature” by Parson Gray, which I thought suited him perfectly.

This project might be one for the record books.  I started cutting a pieces at 11am, and was completely finished with the top by 5pm ~ and that included about 90 minutes doing other things somewhere in the middle.

The pattern is available for free on the FreeSpirit website. I followed the instructions as written (all the fabrics and layout) with the exception that I added an additional border to bring it up to bed sized.

The the more I look at the pattern, the more ideas I get. How about scrap piecing some or all of the rounds? Or maybe paper piecing into one large New York Beauty block?  Flip the sections so the 1/4 circles are out at the corners?

Pearl, of course, thinks it’s just fine the way it is.  She loves Alex, too.