li'l twister quilt

I have this rug I bought for my my child's room, while preparing the nursery. Not knowing what I was having, I wanted the room to be gender neutral. the walls were painted a sea green and I found this rug that reminded me of the sea.

I love this rug.

I love it so much, I decided I wanted to have a quilt to match.

Lucky for me, I hosted a brick swap a few months ago, and the decided colors were lime green, blue and purple. Perfect! 

Plus, I have been wanting to try the lil' twister method for quite some time. I knew this quilt would be perfect for that too. I'm not gonna lie. The twister was more difficult than I anticipated. It was still worth it, mind you. But I don't think I have ever gotten such a work out from quilting!

If you're not familiar with the lil' twister, it goes something like this: First, sew your blocks together patchwork style, along with the border.

Align the twister tool with the seams at the corner.

Cut around the twister tool. repeat for each corner seam. 

Set the newly cut pieces in the same order as was cut, slightly turning them to the right, so all edges are square.

Sew them back together, patchwork style.

Ta-Da!

I actually started this quilt on December 31, 2012. Hoping to get one more quilt top finish in before the end the year. Again, thinking this was easier than it actually was. I managed to get all the pieces cut and sewn back into their individual rows. It was a long day of sewing and cutting. Mostly cutting. I went to bed fairly late, and finished up in the morning. I didn't get it quilted until a few months later.

The only 'before' picture I could find was on my phone. well, a sort of before. I'm just glad I at least had one picture, somewhere. Here it is all layed out and ready to be sewn in to rows.

A few of cutting process. Now this is where I over estimated the ease. In order to cut around the template, with out wanting to move the fabric or template, I moved myself instead. Circling the template for each cut. My legs (and hands) were sore by the end. Definitely not ideal for a large quilt. And by 'large', I mean lap size.

I save all my middle pieces. Trimmed the strings. Sized them up and used them for the border.

And (dum dum DUM), here is my finished quilt! 

I quilted straight lines in the borders, using neutral thread around the twisters, and a purple/green variegated thread in the outer border. I had this brilliant idea that the lines would match, with a break in the patchwork border. I forgot to take the corners into account. So, they don't match like I had planned, but it's barely noticeable, right?!

In the corners, I quilted a giant mum. I had also planned on doing straight lines here, but I didn't like how the first corner turned out and unpicked it all. I am happy I did. I love the mum medallions.

The back is all from 1 yard cuts I had in my stash. Same with the binding.

It may have been all the purple I own. I don't know about you, but there always seems to be one color lacking in my stash. And for me, that's purple. 

If I had thought things through a little better, I would have used the purple in my little demo too.

Of course this thought hadn't dawned on me until I actually made the backing. I still like it.

I absolutely love this quilt.

I'm pretty sure I will make another twister quilt in the future.

And, have you seen all the patterns out there? So cute!