Twisting Away

Sometime last year, I picked up one of those twister patterns for the quilts you make with a nine patch, then you put the template on the nine patch, cut pieces out and resew it. I had seen them before and none really appealed to me before I saw the one I got - a mini template. 


After a few weeks, I decided to pull scraps from the quilt that I made for my friend Sara a couple years ago and make what I could. I thought I would be able to pull together 20 or so scraps, but it turns out that the ones I had were just shy of what the pattern called for, so I wound up with a 9 patch. Here's how it looked when I started. 

Next up, you place the template across the intersection of the fabrics, then cut out the pieces following the template. Once I was done with that, I was left with a holey piece of my original nine patch. 

You sew the cut pieces back together and they make a really neat pattern. I finished mine off with a border and backing from my scrap bins and then quilted it with a pattern from the Free Motion Quilting Project. I used some Rainbows thread that I ordered on sale and I really like how it looks. I did learn that really busy fabrics (like the one in the lower right of this picture) and stripes don't work so well for this pattern and also that you don't want to use one that is the same as the border on the outside of the nine patch because it gets lost. Good lessons for next time! 

Last week, I showed this at show and tell at my guild meeting, then handed it over to the coordinator of the small quilt auction, so if you really like it, you can purchase it at our show in October! It really was a fun little project to work on and I think I'd make another one in spring colors as it would make a nice bright wall quilt for the dreary days before the flower start to pop out of the ground.