Twister quilt

The Lil’ Twister ruler (find it here) has been sitting on my cutting table for months now. It is now time for it to get its share of the limelight!

The inspiration for my quilt came from Connie’s Worldly Twister at Freemotion by the River. I worked with a set of fat quarters by Moda, cut them into 5 inch squares, and joined them like this:

Then, I added the borders…

… and proceeded to cut the blocks using the twister ruler. This is why non-quilters think we are absolutely crazy (twisted???) people, sewing perfectly good-looking pieces of fabric only to cut them all over again! After sewing the ‘twisted’ blocks, here is what I got:

I added thin borders to top and bottom to give it a more rectangular shape, and borders all around again:

The final quilt measures 36.5″ by 35.5″. It will make a nice baby quilt once it is quilted. If you decide to make one of these, here are some tips:

– Be prepared to end up with a quilt top that is about 2/3 smaller than the top sewn with the 5″ blocks, as Connie pointed out.

– You may want to use a smaller rotary cutter in order to make more precise cuts. I bought a smaller one for this project (Fiskars, as JoAnn Stores was out of Olfa, my preferred brand) but could not use it, as the Lil’ Twister ruler has ‘feet’ which raise it from the fabric. The round nut which secures the blade onto the cutter was at the same height as the ruler. That means that the blade could not touch the edge of the ruler, which would add about 1/8″ to my cut block. No good.

– As the ‘feet’ which raise the ruler leave a space between the ruler and the fabric, be sure to hold the rotary cutter very straight next to the ruler’s edge, or it will reach under the ruler, causing you to cut smaller blocks.

– Be careful as you cut the blocks, as you do not have too much room for error. In other words, make sure your cuts do not extend too much beyond the ruler on any side, or you will have cuts on your next block.

– Finally, if you need to piece the border, use a straight seam. As you sew the border to the quilt top (before you use the twister ruler), align that border seam to the seam on one of the rows. This way, when you cut the block on this border, the seam will be under one of the ruler lines, and not at an odd corner. If you don’t get what I mean now, no problem. Just trust me on this!

Hope this helps when you are ready to use your ruler!