the tumbler block is a very traditional shape and it's part of a quilt group of quilts that we call a single template quilt but like a hexagon but it's a much easier shape to use and with the rotary cutter and fast piecing you can really make a traditional scrap quilt very quickly now I was inspired at the weekend by this magazine I saw this lovely tumbler table runner it's made by lady called Colette and it's if you want to pick it up it's in the December issue of British patchwork and coating I'm not going to show you actually how to make the project what I am gonna do is show you how to cut the pieces really quickly and easily with the rotary cutter and also a little trick about piecing it because they are a very slightly odd shape so this is the shape we're gonna cut you do need to make yourself a template I make this out of paper just by virtue copying the template that was given in the back of the magazine and as you can see I have laid this on top of my fabric now the other great thing about that project was it used five inch squares now how many of those do we pick up and not sure what to do with so I've popped this on top of just three or four of those five inch squares with the flat headed pin I can pop my rotary cutting ruler on top and I don't get distorted I'm gonna hold this nice and firm safety catch off even pressure down and away now what I like to do is stay safe so I've got a little rotary cutting mat for the studio if you're at home make sure you walk round your pieces please do not try cutting towards you dust doesn't work and it's very dangerous so there we go so there we go pile of tumbler blocks so we're going to now lay these out and sew them together they are going to so be sewn just in a row they top and tail like this but then there is just a little bit of trick I am going to so with a quarter inch and we need to just pop this on here like this there is a little bit of kind of fudging goes on because you'll have a little bit of a point this is standing up sewing and this may or may not work first time around because in my experience that kind of eyeballing it the first time is my thread snips a bit as I say hit miss and I'm hoping well I just about get away with it well you're aiming for a really nice straight line along there if on your first attempt it's out just bear in mind what's wrong go to the next one and get it right I like to come back and fix it afterwards because I just think all that sorting it out you get better you as as you so there's no question that that like free motion quilting you kind of get into the groove and you get into eyeballing that seam allowance on your machine you'll notice I don't pin it's just one nut extra step and because I haven't got my thread snips in this to do here I'm just going to use the thread cutter now that one is not as good I could get away with that but that isn't as good as here so going back this is slightly needs a slight adjustment for the next one but we would go I would go on like just like this if I had a long row if I was making a big quilt I would sew these in to probably pairs and chain piece and then the pair's would come together to make fours and so on and so on so I hope you'll give that a bit of thought into making a lovely scrap quilt from all those five inch squares that you've got lying around just waiting to be used