I started it around Thanksgiving - see I really wasn't paying attention, there is no way I would have started it for a Christmas present if I'd have known! I thought I could strip piece it, some yes, some no. The directions were hideous, they had you cut all the pieces, even the triangles for the half-square triangles. I speed pieced as much as I could, but it was still very time consuming. For the quilting, it was on the machine for parts of two days, and I wasn't really pushing it, probably could have done it in one long day.