Charm Tumbler Quilt

I first started to collect material for this quilt in October 2000 after seeing the pattern designed by Frances Thurmer in a Patchwork and Quilting magazine. The main thing that drew me to making this quilt was that each piece of material used in it was different. I saw it as a challenge to be able to collect over 700 different pieces of material.


I collected pieces of material from friends, eBay, different shops and my own material stash. I also collected used Christmas and birthday cards so that I could cut out 'tumbler' templates. I then used the templates and tacked on a piece of material so that it would be easier to sew the pieces together.


By the middle of 2005 I finally had enough material and cards to start the quilt. I cut and tacked the material to the cards which I had cut into 'tumbler' shapes and then sewed pieces onto them. I then sewed the pieces into rows of 30 tumblers. For the quilt to fit on the top of my bed I needed 24 rows of 30 tumblers which meant I needed 744 different pieces of material.


I sewed most of this quilt in while I was in hospital with my asthma. I spent 145 days in hospital in 2006, sometimes up to six weeks at a time, so I had plenty of time to work on it. The quilt became a talking point with the staff at the hospital. Every day someone from the kitchen, a cleaner, nurse, doctor, another patient or their visitors would come in and ask how the quilt was going. I found the quilt was a great distraction from being sick and rather than people saying 'how are you feeling?' all the time they would ask 'how's the quilt going?". People even brought in their own quilts to show me their work. There were a lot of days that I was too sick to sew more than a few stitches but it didn't matter as it meant that I was a few more stitches closer to finishing the quilt.


Finishing the quilt, especially without using the same piece of material twice was a major achievement. It's completion also coincided with a decision to change doctors. For most people this is something not worth mentioning but for me this decision saved my life as apart from spending so much time in hospital I had also been intubated twice and on a Bi pap machine to help me breathe more times that I can count. My new doctors started me on some different medication for my asthma and since starting those tablets I have not had to be admitted to hospital for asthma and my lung capacity has more than doubled which is really pretty amazing.


Of everything I have ever made this is probably my favourite quilt. It alternates between being used on my bed and hanging on the wall in my dining area. Some people don't believe that every piece is really different so they try to find two pieces the same. Other people look and are surprised when they see something that hadn't seen before.