Remember when I was working on the Tula Pink City Sampler sew-along? Me neither. I started 2013 with about twenty blocks done and finished it with about twenty. In my defense, there were six months there where I wasn’t sewing anything at all, but that’s just an excuse.The truth is that I’m not so much digging the whole thing. For starters, it’s fiddly. I cannot be doing with blocks made of three thousand 1.5” squares. They’re irritating to cut and irritating to sew. I don’t mind the simpler blocks, but the scale is just annoying. Practically none of my blocks are finishing at 6.5”, and the ones with lots of tiny pieces are lucky to scrape 6”. At first I kept unpicking and redoing, but then I decided I just don’t care if my blocks are 6”, as long as they’re finished already.

All the same, I’ve decided to push through, if only because the blocks are taking up a huge chunk of my design wall, which could be dedicated to something I’m actually enjoying.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve sewn about twenty more blocks, so I’m getting close to the midpoint. Here are a few recent blocks, and how it’s looking so far. For the time being I’m just separating the blocks by colour. I’ll arrange them properly when (if) they’re done.

Linking up with Work In Progress Wednesdays.

Comments (11)

  1. I love your rainbow Tula blocks! I got stuck on #40, one day I will get back to them. Yours are very pretty!

    • Carmit

      Thank you! I’m kind of sick of the whole thing, to tell the truth :). That said, as frustrating as I’m finding it, I don’t think I have it in me to ever even try hexies, so power to you!

  2. I’ve started the Tula Pink blocks. I’ve done 3 but right now I’m working with a project that has a deadline so once I finish it, I hope to get back to my blocks. I agree with you about all the little pieces though. They can be annoying.

    • Carmit

      I do accept that it’ll be a pretty quilt, I just sort of… want it to be over already because it’s stopping me from doing other things. Thanks for dropping by – having a look at your gorgeous quilts now!

  3. I agree that it’s a lovely quilt, and I personally LOVE rainbow anythings…but I am SO with you on the fiddly part. I love the look of this quilt, but know that I could never ever in a million years complete it because I just don’t have the patience for all the teeny tiny parts! And the precision necessary! And the fiddliness! And the other teeny tiny parts! ;o)

    It’ll be lovely when (if?) you finish…so stay strong to the end! Good luck!

  4. Oh, dear! If you aren’t enjoying the project, why not stop? You’ve enough for a baby quilt that would be gorgeous. Or pass them on to someone who would like working on them. Oddly, I’m completely smitten with them and am currently working on my FOURTH batch! My two baby quilts turned out great!

  5. Laura

    I love your blocks! I got the book as a gift and because I’m a) a beginning quilter and b) kind of obsessive, I went through and made a spreadsheet of how many pieces were in each block along with how many different fabrics, thinking I would start with the blocks with the fewest pieces first. I think 30 is the max, but there are quite a few with 20+, which is a whole bunch of pieces in a small block!

    • Oh my…a spreadsheet! I actually though that 31 was the max but I could be wrong. I had the same problem with my City Sampler, that the squares might be a little smaller than the 6.5 they should be. But I did keep going, and the resulting quilt was beautiful! I wanted to make it to closely resemble Tula’s, and that decision alone made the quilt very expensive to make. I didn’t really mind the small pieces, though.

  6. Pingback: Tula Pink City Sampler – FIN. |

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