I'm probably behind and out of fashion, but I'm doing it anyway...

After, like, more than 12 years of working in fabric stores in my teens and twenties, I haven't worked in one for a while now.  Hence, I'm out of fashion.  There's no better way to stay on-trend in the quilting world then working at a quilt shop, and being there on days the product reps come to sell their new stuff...So, I was at a quilt shop, and found this little ruler called a Lil Twister.  Have you seen this?  It's freakin' awesome, and the sales lady demo'ed how easy it was in the store.  I've had it for a while, and haven't tried it yet -- so this weekend, I DID it!  I didn't trust that I'd 1) remember how to use it, or 2) that it would be as easy to use as advertised...but holy cow, IT WAS!!!

For years I've been inexplicably collecting fabrics with snow and other snow-related items -- snowmen, snow angels, snow scenes...the pile was getting embarrassing large, especially considering I didn't have a CLUE what I was collecting them for.  I mean, how much snow fabric can one woman have?  I was trying to answer that question apparently...The finished little blocks with this ruler looked a little like snowflakes to me, so when I saw the ruler, this is what I planned to use it on -- hack up some snow fabric, and make it seem like I had a plan all along.  HA-HA!  Triumph!

OK, so, first I made 5" square four patches, with a border around the outside.  I had a bunch of different sized white/light solid scraps, so I'm using those up.  The 2.5" strips were a little narrow for this, but the 3" strips are working out better.

Then, I laid the Lil Twister on the blocks I made, lining up its lines, and started to cut around it.

It's important to keep the blocks in order.  This was sort of the hardest part -- sometimes I'm good at organization, and sometimes I'm not.  Saturday, when I was doing this = not so much.  So I had to be really aware...

After a while, your quilt block starts to look like Swiss cheese...When you line up the squares, they start to make this little twist, see it? Then I just sewed them together into a twisty little 9 patch...

Here is my finished block:  

Seriously, I had three blocks in about 20 minutes.  In fact, I made a whole stack of 4 patches, and I plan to keep going...as I said, I have lots of fabric that I didn't have a plan for...Of course, NOW, I have a huge stack of these quilt blocks that I don't have a plan for...well, I'm deciding that that's a better pickle to be in than just fabric.  HA-HA!  Another TRIUMPH!  

I'm telling you -- super easy...and totally from the "I wish I'd thought that up" file...coolest ruler I've seen in a while.