New Year's Day Mystery Quilt

Tweeked the New Year's Day Mystery quilt so it took longer to finish the top. I finished it this morning. It's called Chips 'n Strips. Here are some pics:

Chips 'n Strips NYD Mystery quilt

I ended up with extra blocks so I added another row. That changed the border sizes. Because it is a mystery quilt, the borders were already cut. So, I changed the border cornerstones. Original plan were for nine patch corners. Michael had  the great idea to add more squares to the nine patch in order to lengthen the outer border strips. It worked! I love how much he has learned about quilting just hanging out with me! The square in the inner border was in the original plan and the added squares simply changed the entire corner to a 16 patch!

Close up of corner

I am happy with how it turned out. Always a challenge to pull fabrics for a mystery. They don't always turn out. Last years NYD Mystery was UGLY! lol

Just went to Planet Patchwork's website to show you the original quilt but they have taken it down already. Oh well. I am pretty much done with them. There are lots of other great projects waiting to happen!

Busy week. Wednesday was my Block of the Month meetings, one at 10am and a second at 6pm at Cathy's. We did block #5 Jacobs Ladder. It's fun to see everyone doing the same sampler quilt in totally different fabrics.

Thursday was Annie's Star Guild meeting. We had a wonderful speaker, trunk show and workshop by Alethea Ballard of Maverick Quilts. She was a really fun speaker. I did not sign up for her workshop on Friday but dropped by at the end of the day to see quilts made by members. Wow!!! Really fun quilts. She invited me to stay for the last of her class. She has a whole different way to look at fabrics and how to cut them up for borders. Really kewl.

Friday I had to finish FMQing my sample quilt for my next Quilting 101 class. Cathy's had a Checkers Demo Day on Saturday morning and we wanted to get the class sample up for everyone to see. Was up late on Friday but I got it finished! Hung it up on Saturday and stayed for the demo. Lots of new rulers and gadgets. I picked up a couple of books, one ruler, a template and some fun gizmos. One is a suction handle. I bought a medium size for my HST cutting template. Also a tool for FMQ. Can't wait to use it. There were fabric paints, die cutters... all sorts of fun toys to play with!
This is the gripper. I will be able to cut HST faster and safer!
These are the fabric guides for FMQ. 2 sizes. Will get back to you on these once I use them. They look like they could be good for machine appliqué as well. Will see.

Fun week! Now on to my UFO challenge quilt #5 which is my Friendship stars quilt. I updated my 2012 UFO challenge post with pictures of my quilt tops. Click here to go to the post :0)

Happy Quilting! Hope you are all having a great weekend!