I was making some twister blocks recently, using both the Regular and Li’l Twister templates. My only problem was that I wanted a nice, plain background but with multi-coloured centres, and only one of each colour combination (I like to set myself nice, difficult challenges ;o) ) The only tutes I could find out there involved making an entire patchwork top and chopping bits out, which was a little extreme, so I tried to work out the most efficient way to create my base without wasting too much fabric. I decided to do a little trial using some leftover Gypsy Bandana fabric from last year’s SHQ QAL (which I bought far too much fabric for, like at least a yard too much of each colour, so I have plenty to play with! Green and pink happened to come to hand first, I must have put the red and yellow aside for something in a ‘safe’ place)
Since I wanted 2 tone twists, I realised that my centre square needed to be half of one colour and half of the other. Now because of how this is cut out, the squares need to be a wee bit bigger than if they were going to be made the regular way, so for the large template, my measurements were like this:
Colour 1 – 6 ¼” x 12”
Colour 2 – 6 ¼” x 12”
For the solid background I realised I only needed half of the blocks above/below and to the sides of the coloured central square, and therefore at each of the corners, I’d only need a square ¼ of the size of the central square, hence my measurements were like this:
Solid – 6 ¼” x 12” x 4
Solid – 6 ¼” x 6 ¼” x 4
I then assembled these in rows to create a patchwork base to cut out of.
Positioning the ruler:
This is how it looks after the pieces have been cut out:
And the final block:
I made 4 of the Li’l Twister blocks, which I created from a grid made up as follows:
In the grid above, the long edge pieces and the coloured half pieces are 3 ¼” x 6”, the corner edge squares are 3 ¼” x 3 ¼” and the centre squares are 6” x 6”. Sorry, I didn’t think to take photos of this bit!
Now I’m not going to claim that I had no leftover fabric due to how the blocks are cut, but it certainly conserved my waste! I can see myself using this tool more for individual blocks like this rather than an entire quilt, simply because I’m too lazy to do a whole quilt top of these, so it’s good to know in the future what my minimum fabric requirement is.
Oh you secret squirrel you…thanks for the tute!
I've always wondered how you make those twisty guys. Very cool – not to mention excellent colour choices!
I`ve never tried twist pattern.Thanks for the tuto.Love ypour fabric choice!!
Ohho ooh miss!!!
Love the block, and thats a great tute, but omg so much fabric not used in it, that whole middle bit!blimey. What did you do with those bits?!
You are a smarty pants! Very clever indeed 🙂
You're such a tease! Jxo
Very intriguing! I love cool tools/gadgets like these!
Awesome! You're a very clever one :o)
You are clever! Thank you for working that out, you've saved my brain from imploding.
Very clever!!
Can't wait to see the other blocks!!
Okay, now what do you do with the bits left out of the block??? You must have something worked out for them.
So that's how it's done ! Very clever.
How cool! That looks like a fun ruler, too! 🙂
I could see a half square triangle out of the centre left over!
Hugs
Naomi