Hey there,
Quilt Sandwich just got done doing some post-Quilt Market ordering and we're so excited, to quote the Pointer Sisters! And we just can't hide it. This past week we met with our reps for all the awesome companies you love - Free Spirit, Alexander Henry, Michael Miller, Andover, and Robert Kaufman, plus we're going to start carrying some new companies too, like Riley Blake and Blend. (We've never heard of this Blend before, but they are pretty cool! We think you'll like what we picked out.) So now I can't wait to get our new fabrics! Of course, we still have a lot of great things in the shop so you can start shopping any time!
For today though, I'm going to share a fun new project that I'm working on - a Round Robin! I'm excited to give this a try since I've never participated in a Round Robin project before. The way it works is that each person makes a quilt block. Then everyone passes the block to another person in the group and that person adds to the block. You can add borders on as many sides as you want, make more blocks and sew them together, turn the block on point and put triangles in the corners, or even cut it and sew it in a new way. Each person continues to pass the blocks on until you get your original block back and see what's happened to it! Since we have 4 people in the group, we'll do 4 rounds. (We also included fabrics we used so that the new portions that are added can coordinate, but it's not necessary to use it all and adding from your own stash is encouraged!)
I'm doing this Round Robin with a few of my coworkers, who all like to quilt. We decided on a theme for ours - we're chose sort of a stars-and-stripes meets Canada thing because one of our group members, Ruth, recently became a dual citizen of Canada and the U.S of A. We could interpret the theme in anyway we wanted - red, white and blue (or not), stars in any form, maple leaves or leaf-printed fabric - whatever we felt worked with the theme. The only requirement on size was that the finished block be divisible by 2, since that is an easy number. So far we've each done our first block and yesterday we made the trade!
I've decided to blog about this because I think it'll be a fun and interesting experiment and I want to record our progress. So without further ado, here are our first blocks!
This gem is Ruth's block! She figured out how to make the Canadian maple leaf and then did this cool striped background, going from aqua to midnight blue. Then she appliqued the stars on it, so you definitely get the feel of both countries. Ruth's quilts are often smaller wall hangings that are intricate and beautiful - she designs her own patterns too! Ruth passed her block to me, so I'm the next to add to it. I have to be honest - at this point, I have NO idea what I'm doing to do.
Next up is Margy's fun block:
Margy has a more whimsical approach - the red print in the upper left corner is Japanese and has bunnies on it! Too cute. Margy's quilts always have a really fun, patchworky feel that I like. She doesn't use matchy-matchy fabrics and it gives her quilts a lot of color and energy. I also like that she has one of the star blocks facing a different way.
Here's Paula's block:
As you can see, Paula is the rebel of the group, going with no red! She said she doesn't really love the red, white and blue color combo, but she does like batiks, so she chose tons of pretty blues to make this neat star. It almost looks tropical! She also did some leaf-motif blocks in three of the corners and then did the nine-patch in one corner to add some flair. Paula makes really cool quilts - she has done nice batik quilts, gorgeous Kaffe quilts and she also did a really cool kaleidoscope one too.
Finally, here's my block:
So, I went for simple with mine. I chose a block from Elizabeth Hartman's Practical Guide to Patchwork, and since I didn't have a lot of color in my block I made one of the star points a rusty red fabric to add a pop. Maybe I shouldn't admit it, but the prints in my block are all from Denyse Schmidt's collection of fabrics for Jo-Ann. (I know, shopping with the Man.) But it was really hard for me to choose fabrics since I'm usually not one for real patriotic quilts, and it seemed weird to not use red, white and blue. So I liked that these fabrics look vintage-ey and are muted shades.
I'm really excited to see what everyone does with their blocks! We have about a month to add to our blocks and then we'll do another switcheroo. It should be pretty interesting because we all have quite different styles. Everyone seems totally okay with people doing whatever they want with their additions too, so I think it'll be a great way to challenge ourselves. Another nice thing about this project is that we'll continue trading blocks and at the end of it, we'll have a finished top! It's helpful to have a schedule sometimes.
If anyone has done their own Round Robin project, I'd love to hear about it! I'll post with our updates next month!
Becca
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