Hello, and welcome back to my little corner of the Internet! I’ve been settling in to my new studio quite nicely, and I’m making good progress on last year’s $5 Quilt top from my local quilt shop, Sew Special in Katy, Texas. Here’s a little catch up on where I am with it now.

I’ve taken part in all of Sew Special’s $5 quilt blocks since they opened a shop in Katy and started offering it. If I recall, that was around the summer of 2017. All of the programs are for samplers, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I’m not a huge fan of samplers. Another thing I’ve learned is that I do so love the $5 quilt program that even though it’s a sampler quilt, I keep going back. I’m already signed up for the new blocks that start in March. If you’re local and interested in taking part in this wonderful program, check out this page to sign up.

This is the first year I’ve been able to keep track of everything, even if I didn’t finish the top on time. I did keep up really well until we put an offer in on the new house in July, and we started cleaning, purging and packing the old house. Last year’s program had 13 blocks instead of the usual 12, and they were 9.5″ as opposed to the previous standard of 12.5″ blocks. I will admit to not particularly caring for the 9.5″ blocks. Every one of them has a nine patch as the center, and it’s a little fussy at that size. If the finished size of the blocks had been 12″ or 15″, I would have enjoyed the series very much. As a result, I’m considering bordering each block to make it about 12.5″. That, along with some sashing between the blocks, will make for a decent sized quilt.

I have really enjoyed working with this fabric line, which was designed by Amanda Murphy for Benartex. The colors are wonderful, and there’s quite a bit of variety with which to work.

At any rate, I have finally completed all 13 blocks. I did enjoy the fabric selections, and I was fortunate to find extra fabric that I plan to use for finishing the quilt. After I have this quilt finished, I will go back to the black & white quilt I was working on when we decided to buy the house. It really should be easy to finish up, as I am just adding sashing to precut a 10″ layer cake. I’m not sure how I’m going to back the quilt – it didn’t even occur to me to look for anything I can use for backing, but now I’m kicking myself for not looking for something before now.