Round Robin

About 2 years ago, I was approached by some friends (I can't remember who exactly started it) to join a Round Robin quilt swap. I've never done one before, but my Mom has, and it's been fun to see some of the things she's done for them -- and to see what she's come home with!  The girls wanted an 18"-ish center, and there just aren't a whole lot of patterns out there written for 18", so I decided to try out a brand-new, never-before-seen, Natalie original pattern, which looked a little something like this:

The only problem was, I REALLY had a hard time letting go of this. Because I'd never really put myself into others' care, I really had a hard time trusting them to take care of my baby.  Would they completely lose the center?  What if they hated my block?  What if they took it in a completely different direction -- and it came back to me and I hated it?

We had a rule that nobody could see their quilts during the swapping process, so it would be a total surprise at the end, so I stewed about things for a little while.  And then, finally, I just had to let myself be okay with releasing my baby into the big, bad old world, and letting it grow up.

We had a phenominal group of quilters working on the swap, and I feel everyone really tried hard to give it their all. Sometimes a simple stop border was all the quilt needed -- and sometimes a really challenging border was needed. But it was really fun to have that mental challenge and stimulation, and I know now that everyone was really working hard to make great borders for everyone else.

The truth is, my quilt came back COMPLETELY changed.  It really had grown up -- but I LOOOOVE the direction it took. When I got it back, the last girl had put a gorgeous ending border on it, but when I put it on my bed I realized that it would be too small to cover my sheets (especially with a 1-3% shrinkage factor). While I love my children dearly, this was MY quilt, and I really wanted it to go onto my bed.

So I decided to make one more 6" border, all the way around. And then I was stuck. There were so many amazing ideas in my quilt -- did I highlight the arrows? The braids? Did I repeat some of the center pattern? It seemed the choices were endless -- and I really, REALLY didn't want to mess up this beautiful quilt!

So I left it for about 6 months.  In that time, I pulled it out at least 10 times, and put it on my bed a couple more times, and didn't get any inspiration at all.  Then Christmas came and wiped me out, so all January I sketched out ideas and planned and finally came up with a plan.  I decided to use all the same fabrics as the center to make four separate borders, with 6" farmer's-wife-inspired corners.  The top border would be like Allison Harris's Scout pattern (which I already own), the bottom border would be a snail-trail design, the left side would be military stripes, and the right side would be a nod to the tribal/Navajo blanket design trend that's so popular right now.

As you can see below, that plan changed and evolved -- now it has simple, chubby plus signs on top (a friend told me it might be Puss in the Corner?), a cute block I found on Pinterest (bento box maybe?) for the bottom, and plain corners. The left and right sides stayed virtually the same as the plan.

* I couldn't decide which picture to post here -- so I posted both! You can see each side better in one picture, but not the other. Please don't mind my Halloween décor... or Parker (he really wanted to be in the picture -- that should have been my first clue!)... :)

I paper-pieced the military stripes (do you see it that way? I really think they look like that!) so they would have accurate center matches, and I think it worked out really nicely. If I had it to do over, I would have changed a couple of things about the placement on the left and right borders, but now that it's done I won't change a thing!  The chubby plus signs and bottom border turned out EVEN CUTER than I had imagined, and I think the white background makes the whole quilt just a little lighter than it would have been without that extra border.  I'm so, so pleased with the end result -- and I'll tell you right now, I would do another Round Robin in a heartbeat!

I did learn a couple of things the hard way. First, to respect others' work.  I had an idea for one quilt to change a border, because I felt like it just didn't go with the rest of the quilt. In the end, I just added to that border, adding some applique on top of it. I feel like that was a much better choice -- and that it would have been so disrespectful to change the hard work someone else had done.  Second, I am REALLY good at waiting for things -- sometimes the anticipation of a really fun present is better for me than the actual present. Now, don't get me wrong -- I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my quilt, but I was afraid right at the end that I wouldn't, and then I wouldn't even have anything else to look forward to!  Third, I had to learn to trust other quilters with my own ideas. It was really hard for me, because I guess I'm a bit of a control freak, but I think it was so good that I reached out and did something outside my comfort zone -- I really grew from this experience, and I think it's made me even more prepared to write my patterns!