WIP Wednesday: the one with Tula Charms

Trying to keep up with everything in January is a lot of effort!

My garden is growing, my social life is humming, my work is an effort, and my writing is laboured. Plus, I'm having small and niggling health issues that are taking up a lot of time and energy.

Quilting is way down the queue right now.

On the plus side, Swarm made it to the QuiltCon offices and the dodgy points and the machine-sewn binding couldn't defeat the visual power of the design! (At least they haven't said "your points are rubbish and we're not going to hang this", so I'm guessing it's okay?

I'm so positive! :D


My big WIP this week is The Aussie Tula Charm-Along. The original charm swap was organised by Ms Midge, and involved (I think) 112 charms. Ish?


And they're being sewn into HSTs:


That's a lot of HSTs that need cutting and ruling and sewing and cutting and pressing and trimming...


Did I mention lot of HSTs?


But they're sewn and trimmed and sorted!


And now it just requires sewing into blocks, and thenceforth into a quilt.

The problem is that it's due - finished - on the 27th, and while I could make it at a sprint, I find I don't have the time/energy to sprint. It's a hard knock life! Especially when my garden is growing so well!


Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced, as I always do.

charm pack confusion

Back when I first started getting into precuts (about 3 years ago), I bought up a bunch of charm square packs - just colours and styles that appealed to me, with no real idea of what I was going to use them for.

Over the years, I continued to have very little idea of what I should create with them...

One set I turned into HSTs for a darks/lights quilt, which has never been finished. I buried my cat in it earlier this year, sort of as a reminder of all those quilts she parked herself upon through the years.

Then I sorted several 'classic' charm packs into a shade-oriented layout...and then never worked out how to put it together. The original plan was for hexagons in rows, offset by triangles in contrasting solids.



However, I believe the hexagon blocks I had in mind require fairly careful and precise quilting, so not an option.

Right now, I'm tending towards making a Li'l Twister out of it.

That left at least two charm packs that still haven't been used.

And yesterday, I decided I'd just turn them into a disappearing nine-patch lap quilt.

Cue: dropping everything and sewing!





It'll be a cot quilt - not more than 40" square, if that. I might consider hand-quilting it for a change. Or else practise my machine-quilting skills on it (such as they are).

I'm still deciding what to do with the remaining three blocks. Perhaps put them on the back of the quilt? Or else add them to my 'orphan blocks' and finally end up putting them all together in a 'random block quilt'?