Last Quilt Before Christmas?

I had only planned on doing four quilts for this Christmas, one for each of my aunts and one for my mother. Being worried about time I had deliberately picked simple patterns. But, because she's my mom, I wanted to do something special for her. So with it being just about half way through October and I have a few weeks to get through this one I'm now starting to plan how I'm going to tackle this project.

I got the pattern out of the Fall/Winter 2010 Quilt Sampler Magazine. The original project is entitled "Mint Chocolate", which made me think of Tim...but since he's already got a brand new quilt to cuddle up in he's out of luck for now. So I'll be taking this quilt and changing the color scheme to red, white and black. I think it will look really sharp when I'm done with it. And everyone loves a good stripey binding! :)

I haven't taken on a pattern this complex before. Even the pattern I did for Tim, which was self designed, wasn't as complex as this. This quilt incorporates a Rising Star block with an Irish Chain block to connect the whole thing. Just looking at the cutting directions is a little daunting. It's going to take me several days to just to cut everything out. I'm tempted to take it all down to the quilting studio in Amesbury to try out their press cutter. They say they have one member that can cut a whole quilt in 8 minuets using the press. That is insane!