New Year Mystery

None of the New Year's mysteries posted on line this year seemed doable to me. For a mystery quilt to be manageable for me, it needs to have 4 or 5 fabrics maximum. It's hard for me to pick 8 fabrics from my stash that "work" together without seeing the quilt design. 
So I found an older mystery on line that just needed 4 fabrics, and got together with some friends to sew it on New Years Day. 
I used my deceased brother's shirts for this project. I had deconstructed the shirts (refer to Bonnie Hunter's Scraps and Shirttales books for tips) and have been looking for the perfect project to use up this fabric.
However, this turned out to be a stressful experience, with lots of bias seams, pieces not matching well, lots of fudging (stretching and swearing) going on, several bouts of unstitching (more swearing), and one pattern cutting error that meant we had too few pieces to sew our blocks. I won't post the link to the pattern because it was really not an enjoyable experience to sew it.

Just look at these block edges... some of them are 1/4" out. I rarely have this problem when I'm sewing because I'm quite meticulous about the 1/4" seam. But this quilt... well, all of us found it challenging from start to finish.

I did make it extra challenging by using directional fabrics, but that was one of the easiest factors to sort out. And I'm happy with how all the stripes are going.

The positive part is that we did have a great day together, talking about what we are planning to do in the new year, and enjoying good food. And we managed to sew many quilt blocks that are missing lots of points! 

Here are my 9 blocks on the design wall. I can't tell you how many hours were spent on unsewing and resewing, and trying to get the darn blocks to be close to the right size. The blocks are ready to sew together and next come the borders.
Linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Small Quilts.