LQS Mystery Sampler

I am still participating in my LQS's Mystery Sampler. We receive new assignments each month and I'm happy to say I've kept up with all of them... except one. We had redwork to do in January, and I almost had it all finished (in spite of those same ol' unexpected events), but I just couldn't pull it off. I had to pay the $5.00 for the next month's block fabric and pattern. (Darn!)

Here are all the blocks we've done up 'til now (except the redwork):
Excuse the horrible lighting.

This block (from this month) gave both my friend and me trouble. We both had corners that ended up chopped off, even though we followed the instructions. I'll be interested to see if other women (especially those who are beginners and haven't made this block before) had the same problem. If not, I want to know what we did wrong. We didn't even work on them together (as we often do), so it wasn't like the blind leading the blind.
Btw, I was actually to the point of trimming this block down to the 12.5 inches... all finished, you know? This I looked at it and noticed I had sewn one of the very first strips on upside down. I could not believe that I didn't notice it before that moment, when I was about to trim it all down and pack it into my plastic carry-box. I thought I was going to have to pick the whole thing apart, or buy new fabric and start over... but I put my thinking cap on and figured out that I could just take off a few pieces, pick back a couple of inches on a few more, and fix the upside down strip, then re-press and re-sew everything to put it all back together. It worked! I did do some backstitching to secure it all, and it turned out fine. (Other than the chopped off corners, which I will still need to figure out. But they were there BEFORE I took everything apart!)

And on the redwork: The teacher's pattern was very cute... a chubby little duck pushing a flower cart. Very cute, but not really what either my friend or I wanted. She found a pattern we both liked more - from an old coloring book, no less - and made hers from that. I will be using it, too, even though I did have the duck almost completely done. To me, the duck made the quilt look more like a baby quilt, which doesn't really fit in with my plans for it. So, anyway, I'll be working on the redwork in the next few weeks so that it will be ready when it's time to start sewing the quilt top together.