The mystery quilt top is finished, and I am very pleased with it, I love that border of star blocks, it's so cheerful. To make the blocks fit exactly I made the side sashes 3" (3.5" cut) and all the others 2" (2.5" cut). That made all the measurements of the pieced centre a multiple of 8, and the star blocks fit perfectly. The little green border around the outside is 2.5".I should be good and quilt this so that it's ready for next Christmas, but I won't commit myself to that; there are a mighty lot of quilts in the queue already.

There are a lot of spare parts leftover, but they will find homes in other projects. I used up so much material, it was a great way to clean out the scrap drawers. Bonnie's mysteries are always fun.

Now that I have the design wall empty again I will have to choose a new project; there are two UFOs that I want to have finished by New Years Eve, but that doesn't mean I can't start something new as well. I have an elastic view of time, I believe it can be stretched to include all sorts of things, like 25 hours of sewing each day. Don't disillusion me....

My Christmas present to myself was this enormous book, which I have only skimmed through so far. It's a beautiful book, very good quality, and well worth adding to the collection. If you live outside the USA I can recommend the Book Depository in the UK; they have free shipping, and I've never waited more than 8 days for a book to arrive, which is pretty amazing.

Several of the quilts caught my eye straight away.

There's definitely a theme happening here.

I think I'll be making some string blocks very soon......