Twister Pinwheel Topper Finally Finished

I finished a table topper I started last year.

 I added the last row of prairie points and the black border and laid it aside wavering between whether it was worth the effort of finishing-- then I did the swirly quilting and got disillusioned again wishing I'd used a different design or thread color.  

A few more days passed and sometimes -- in certain light, it seemed to be worth finishing up so finally I added the black binding.

The rest of this post was written last year and includes some of my inspiration and process in making it.  

I was recently watching this twister tutorial at the Missouri Star Quilting Co. and looking around at other twister tutorials, when I came across a tutorial to make your own cheap quilting template here:

I went to Lowes and bought the acrylic but ended up just drawing an "X" on my existing square rulers.  (it's awful trying to remove the tape I placed over the marker lines-- so I recommend NOT using your good rulers)  Check out the link and here's a little summary of what I did.
1.  First I drew it on paper and used permanent marker to put it on my ruler

For a layer cake square (10"), the template is 8 inches square.  So your "X" will cross in the middle at 4 inches and will extend out 2 inches from each corner.  Put tape on your marks to prevent them from smudging.

I'd seen someone make one with calico's and a black border so gathered up some similar fabrics. 

1. Cut them into 5 inch strips.  
2.  Sew 2 strips together and then cut that into 5 inch widths and do that again with 2 other 5 inch strips
3.  Sew the those into Four Patches

I was going to make a table runner.

 

I got antsy and made a square (for a table topper) instead.   This finishes at 23 inches square.

 
Now I realized that I'd made a template for a 10 inch square, so needed to make a template for a charm (5") square.  This template is 3 1/2 inches and the "X" will be at 1 3/4" and the end lines will be 1 inch from the edges.

1.  Line up your "X" with the seam and then cut.

 2.  Because my template was not 3 1/2" square, I had to turn it around, line it up again, and cut the opposite side

There is 1/2 inch between each square, so I was thinking it would work out to make the template 4 inches, instead of 3 1/2".

When you're done, you have a puzzle!  Note in the top left corner, I have 4 "puzzle pieces" sewn together.

Laying out the pieces.

All laid out and just like a real puzzle, one of the pieces is missing.

Found it!

Square it up.  It's now 16 1/2 inches square.  What kind of border should I add?

What to do with these little 2 1/2 squares which are left over after cutting?

A couple of these fabrics are from the Sweet Grass Prairie line from Connecting Threads and so as I was sewing I was thinking about Little House on the Prairie and calico fabrics.  Hey-- what about a prairie point border!

1. PRAIRIE POINTS

1.  Fold a 2 1/2" square in half.

2.  Fold it in half again.

3. Tuck each little point slightly inside the previous point.  How much is to your taste-- at least while I was perusing pictures of prairie points, it seemed to vary from project to project.

4.  Lay one or two down, lining up the edges and sew down as shown, carefully adding a new point before you get to the center of the point you're sewing down.

That is the end of my post from last year, but you get the idea!

In the end, I'm glad I finished it up!  Thanks for stopping by!

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts