I learned something new

I've been seeing these gorgeous Twister or Whirlygiggle type quilts all over the internet (like on Pinterest) and I SO wanted to make one.  But... I didn't want to spend $10 or so on the template to make one.  So, I did some reading online, looked at several tutorials and then, I took my cute little four inch square template and drew a couple lines on it. 

Then, I cut up some scraps of fabric into 5 inch squares and sewed them together.  I also sewed a three inch binding around my squares. And then I started cutting my sewn together blocks into new blocks. This is how you line up the template. You carefully cut with a rotary cutter around the template to get new blocks. As I did this, I understood why the one tutorial I read was SO anal about making sure each row of your stitching goes the alternate direction---lumpy seams makes your template hard to hold in one place. I'll be more exact next time.

 

Here you can see at the top, two rows of blocks waiting to be cut.   At the bottom are two rows already cut and twisted into the new pattern.

And her's the final product.  It's doll sized. :)  I think I should've used higher contrast fabrics, but it's still fun.