This little quilt measures about 19-inches square. It's made from four 3-1/2-inch Bear's Paw quilt blocks that are surrounded by cornerstones and pieced sashing. A dark inner border and a floral outer border complete the little quilt.

Everything is quick and strip-pieced. Half square triangle units used in blocks finish at 1/2", but you can make them perfectly every time but assembling the units slightly larger than necessary and then cutting each one back to the exact size before sewing.

_{Photo © Janet Wickell}

New Year's Day is just a couple of weeks away, so it's time for a bit of information to help you begin choosing mystery quilt fabrics. The pattern is suitable for both scrappy and orderly quilts, and the final design can be swapped and switched around so much that I predict everyone's quilt will look very different. Be sure to save the link, because I'll add more information as we get closer to January 1, including some cutting instructions to give you a head start. But for now, focus on your fabrics.

Subscribe to my newsletter to be among the first to hear about all new quilt patterns and  articles.

Hula Twist is a quilt with 12" blocks. Two traditional designs are used, the Friendship Star and the Eccentric Star. The blocks link together to give the quilt a bit of twist, helped by the very light background that allows the "legs" of the Eccentrics to move forward. The quilt finishes at 72" x 92", but you can adjust that a bit by playing with border numbers and dimensions.

The Whirlpools baby quilt goes together pretty quickly, and might come in handy if you need a last minute holiday project. The quilt is made with one traditional block sewn in two different colorways. Blocks are assembled entirely with quick pieced flying geese units, but using two different methods. With one technique, you'll sew small squares to a larger square to create the geese, and with the other method you'll start with rectangles.

_{Janet Wickell}

Speed piecing techniques make stitching this little quilt a breeze. The light fabric that surrounds the stars blends with the pictorial angel fabric used in the center of the snowball blocks, giving the snowballs an on-point appearance even though all blocks are sewn together side by side. The quilt measures 29-1/2" square.

_{photo © Janet Wickell}

I've had many requests lately for the instructions to make folded fabric star Christmas ornaments. We used this technique in the 1980s to make framed wallhangings, and my mom used it twenty years before that for trivets and potholders and pillowcase covers. It's versatile and can be adapted for so many uses. There's no sewing involved for the ornaments -- folded pieces of fabric are simply pinned to a Styrofoam ball.

_{Photo © Janet Wickell}

Fat quarters always make excellent quilting gifts, and it's easy to dress them up a bit by folding them into triangles, and then bundling them to create stacked stars. There's no need to cover your star bundles with wrapping paper -- just tie them together with decorative yarn or another embellishment that the recipient can use to decorate a quilt or fabric postcard.

_{Photo © Janet Wickell}

This new wallhanging uses a couple of blocks -- one is the traditional Ohio Star. Its color values are altered slightly and the block is placed on point -- both actions change the Ohio Star's appearance. Make the 48" square wallhanging for yourself or stitch it together when you need a gift. The quilt goes together fairly quickly, and its theme can be altered dramatically by simply changing the fabrics.

_{Janet Wickell}

Be sure to look up at Panasonic's 28 x 38 foot Astrovision screen if you're in New York's Times Square during the holidays. Four times each hour you'll see quilts that were part of an exhibition sponsored by NYC's City Quilter earlier this fall. Quilts in the sequence include Judy Doenias' Carmen Miranda, Anita Grossman Solomon's Key West Beauty, In Our Time, a Dear Jane quilt by Judy Doenias and Diane Rode Schneck, Ellen Yamaguchi's New York City Lights and Cathy Izzo's Batik Schoolhouse.

The illustration is a peek at the black colorway of Olde New York, one of the fabrics in The City Quilter's New York City collection. A fabric depicting NYC's subway map is available, too, and more designs are on the way. The City Quilter's Dale Riehl says:

Most visitors--as well as New Yorkers--have always loved our extensive selection of New York-related fabrics. But we could never predict when a great design would come in, nor control how long it would be in print. So this is a logical move to control our own fabric destiny, as well as let us offer a unique product featuring our favorite city.

Order products online if a trip to NYC isn't in your plans.

Follow The City Quilter on Facebook
New York Fabrics at the City Quilter
City Quilter Home Page

_{Photo © The City Quilter}

It's about that time again, and I've had lots of emails asking if I plan to do a New Year's Day Mystery Quilt. I do, and I've been kicking around ideas, but your input can help. Here's a poll, and it will let you choose multiple answers. The results will be most helpful if you limit your responses to your Top 2 choices. It's impossible to create a quilt that everyone will like, but I'd like to create something that falls into the general "top picks" of the majority. You can also use the Comments area to voice your opinions.

UPDATE: It looks like scrappy is the number one choice, so we'll definitely go that route. But I chose a pattern yesterday and it's one that will make it easy to include an orderly version for anyone who doesn't want to use scraps. Watch my newsletter for links to the fabric requirements document -- probably the 12/9 edition.