Blockheads 5 – a mystery sampler sew-along – started way back in May 2025. Burton and I jumped on with much gusto, and made the first few blocks. And then we just kind of fell off. I was busy with the garden and other projects. And to be honest, I wasn’t loving the blocks*. And the project just languished. All the blocks had now been released, we’d only done five of the 24.

I was sooo tempted to ignore it some more and start something new. But part of me wants to start with a REALLY fresh slate.

So, after cleaning the studio, I pulled everything out and sat down to confer with Burton.

We had five blocks done. And somewhat of a plan to fussy cut centres, and add one solid colour, while alternating backgorund colours between black and white (like we did with our Mod Cat Quilt). And it was a great plan on its own. But it wasn’t going to work with even HALF of the blocks in the sewalong. (That’s the danger of working on a mystery QAL and trying to bend it to your whims.)

We needed a new plan.

After much discussion, Burton and I realized we could do one more block, which would give us six blocks. We could then repeat those blocks, and we’d have 12 – enough for a lap quilt! Brilliant!

I got to work making the sixth block,

It didn’t take long – which was good because cleaning the studio took up much of the sewing time for the day.

You will note, that while we have six blocks, we only have four accent colours. So that means, before I go and duplicate all these blocks – I need to decide which accent colour each will get. To ensure a proper distribution across the quilt, I’m going to have to sit down and actually plan it out.

Planning is not my strong suit. I’m much more a of a chaos goblin whole flies by the seat of her pants. But planning this one requires, so planning I shall do.

Burton is down with all this, so I guess I better get out my graph paper!

*We’ve decided no mystery sew alongs this year, not even our beloved Stay-at-home-round-robin. We’ve got too many quilt plans in our queue already and we need to clear them out!