Round Robin

When my sister was here for Thanksgiving, she told me about a class she is taking in Winston-Salem, NC, called Head for the Border.  The purpose of the class is to challenge creativity and quilting skills by making your own Round Robin quilt.  Skills to be learned:  designing borders, using math to make them fit the previous round, use of color and piecing skills.  The group meets once a month.  The first step for the members was to decide on their center block, which could be either square or rectangle, and one measurement being at least 12" to 18" finished size.  Color chips were placed in one bag and various design elements (square, rectangle, triangle, flying geese, quarter square triangles, etc.) were placed in another bag.  At each meeting, a color and design element are drawn from the bags to indicate what is to be used in the next round of the quilt. Unlike other round robins, each person works only on their own quilt.  Unlimited spacer/accent borders may be used throughout the quilt and border width is each person's personal choice. Cornerstones may also be used.

So I decided that even though I cannot attend the classes, my sister can send me the information each month and I can do this along with them.  She already had the information for the first round, so I was able to start with a center square and first border.

Here's my center square.  The name of this block is Chicopee Square and I found it in an issue of Quilt Magazine.

November - Round 1:  The first color and design element that had been drawn were black and a rectangle.....so here's my square and first "round."

December - Round 2:  They had another meeting this week and the color drawn is green and the design element is flying geese. Since I had some flying geese elements in my center square, I decided to just carry them over into this second "round."  (Probably should have used the flying geese all the way around, but it's MY quilt, so I did it like I wanted to.......anyone surprised?!)

Will continue to add to this post each month as I add another "round."  Not sure how many more "rounds" there will be.

January - Round 3:  Color and design element drawn for Round 3 are brown and squares.  I chose to do a Seminole border, using red with the brown I chose.  Then I went ahead and added a black spacer border to make the quilt now measure 30-1/2 square (30" finished), so that will give me several size options for the next border.

No meeting in February, so I will have to wait until end of March for next color and element.

March - Round 4:  Color is purple and design element is square-in-a-square.  Since my Seminole border squares are on point, I decided to add two sets of triangles to my square-in-a-square block so that the square would sit square in this border.  The squares are 3" finished and the rectangle spacers are 1-1/2" x 3" finished.  The quilt now measures 36-1/2" square (36" finished).

April - Round 5:  Color is orange and design element is a quilt block.  I decided to use a 6-inch Sawtooth Star block.  The orange is a batik fabric with yellows, greens, purples, and turquoises in the pattern.  I added another narrow black border to make my block finish at 54" so that gives me several different sizes I can use for my next and final Round Robin border.

May - Final Border:  The final design element was applique and the colors that were left were red, blue and yellow. The instructions were that we could add a border with any or all of the colors with applique on the border or we could put applique anywhere else on the quilt we wanted.  Since I don't like to do applique, I chose the simplest design and method, fusible web, and added a flower to the center of my beginning block. I added a yellow batik border.  Most all of the fabric in the quilt are batiks.  Here is the final quilt.   It will measure 62" square when finished.   I will bind with black when I finish quilting it.