FIVE AND DIME CHRISTMAS SAMPLER

I worked on my Five and Dime Sampler blocks that I'm doing through B & B Quilting in Buda TX.  It's a neat program.  You pay $5, get a sampler block for the month, bring it back the next month finished and pay a dime for the next one.  They also offer an "alternate" block to go with it.  A very inexpensive quilt when the program is over, if you keep up.  Oops there's always a loop hole.  You have to keep up!

While I did a pretty good job of keeping up, there is also another loop hole for me.  Buda is 2 1/2 hours away and the Five and Dime program is the 3rd Saturday of each month.  Some months I have scheduling conflicts that don't allow me to make the drive on that particular Saturday.  If it were in my own town, I could easily run down and pick up my block in 30 minutes or less but scheduling a 5 hour drive is a bit more challenging.  I can still pick up my blocks when I go the next time but it costs me $5 again, instead of the dime.  And while that is still not a very expensive BOM, it could have been less!

Now I know some of you are thinking, what about the gas money needed to get there and back.  Yes, it does cost money for the gas but I also go to pick up quilts from my customers and deliver finished quilts to my customers so that's a business expense I would have anyway.  And since we live in a small town, and very little shopping opportunity, with NO QUILT SHOP, I take that opportunity to do some monthly shopping.  Did I mention we don't have a quilt shop in Brownwood TX?

Okay, I kinda got off subject.  I started this blog post to show you the last 3 months of the Five and Dime Christmas Sampler.  Here they are:

This is the layout I'm thinking of using.  I think I want the background to be a red, like the pool table top in this picture.  I think the tree will get lost if I use a cream color.  What do you think?  Or I could use a green??  I'm also going to make a small 5" sawtooth star in gold for the top block, instead of the churndash block that I have laid out up there.  I'll then have 4 alternate churndash blocks left over and I'm going to use them as cornerstones in the outer border.