Carry posts on in the sidebar

In the sidebar instead of navigation or lists I want to display more blogposts on the homepage. How do i go about doing this?

<?php get_header(); ?>
  <div class="page-wrap group">

    <div class="grid">

      <?php query_posts('showposts=4'); ?>

        <?php if (have_posts()): ?>

      <section class="blog-posts col-2-3 grid-pad">

        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

          <article class="module" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">

            <h2> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
            <p class="time"><?php the_date(); ?> by <?php the_author(); ?></p>

            <?php the_excerpt(); ?>

          </article>

          <?php endwhile; ?>

      </section>

<?php else: ?>

  <p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>

The is the current code for getting blogposts. The side bar will look like so

<aside class="col-1-3 grid-pad">
	<article class="module">
<?php ?>
	</article>
</aside>

How do i carry my loop on into the sidebar?