Lil' Twister Quilting Tool

My friend, Dolores, recently showed me the Lil' Twister Tool for making pinwheels.  I decided to use fabric from my stash to make a table runner following instructions in the package.  Above you see where it all began, with 24 charms sewn together with a 3" border.

Now it is time to use the tool shown above.  You place the tool on the intersections of the charms and cut out a square using the rotary cutter.

These are the resulting squares.

Here are the squares ready for stitching together.    I choose various purple fabrics for the pinwheels.  All are from my stash.  The inner border is a gray print.  I will use a black print for the border. 

I'll post the finished table runner later today.  This was a fun project.  A little time consuming when cutting out the blocks and you do have quite a bit of waste.  Instructions say there is a 1/4 to 1/3 loss.  I would agree.  I would recommend a small rotary cutter because of the size of the block. 

Another Project from Leftovers

I made this little tablerunner yesterday.  A few years ago I made a quilted wallhanging from these blocks.  I found the block pattern on the web and used a charm pack.  I used most of the squares.  While organizing my studio I found these leftovers in a bag and stitched into a tablerunner.  The backing and binding are leftover fabric from a tote bag. 

I decided to use a stipple stitch.  It's been quite awhile since I did stippling but I think it turned out nicely.  I stippled with the backing facing up.  I find the blocks sometimes get in the way of free motion stitching.  By stitching on the back, you still get lovely stitches on the top.  I continue to use my scraps and leftovers.   It is fun to see what you can come up with.  I'm now working a a few squares using a circular template and scraps from the scrap basket.