Round Robin: Part 1

At our last meeting, the Loose Thread Society exchanged Round Robin blocks. I got Anna's Ohio Star. Ohio Star blocks are actually one of my favorite blocks so I was very excited to get her's first. She included a note that said she liked soft colors, pale blue, mint green, yellow, and pink. She also has very traditional tastes, so I knew I couldn't go improv or very modern. I know the next person in the circle is a beginner quilter, so would likely not do anything very detailed, so, to add something interesting early on in this block is vital.

First, I dug through my fabric stash to find fabrics that might go with her color scheme.

I found some similar greens, a nice strip and some spots. I found yellow gingham and some pale pink. I felt like the pink needed to be closest to the block, to introduce the new color first. But it was bed time, so I'd have to start sewing tomorrow.

Sometime the next day, I saw this photo on Facebook. The colors were pretty similar, and I liked how there was a pink border, followed by a white strip and a checkerboard.

Since I'm only allowed to add a maximum of 6" on all sides, I knew if I did this, my patchwork checkerboard will be very small.

I dug through my stash and found a few more colors that coordinated with the first fabrics I found and that were more traditional in design, like Anna would like.

So, first I did a simple pink border to frame the Ohio Star. Then I used a 1" strip of white fabric to create a 1/2" border between the pink and the patchwork.

I used 1.5" tiny squares to create a 1" border of scrappy 4 checkerboard around that.

To stabilize all those seams, and to give the next person a nice clean finish from which to work, I did a 2" white border, thus adding 5" total on each side.

I was having so much fun, I didn't want to just stop at 5", but I knew if I didn't, Anna's block could very quickly turn into a huge king size blanket after everyone in the group worked on it.

I did share pictures with Anna already and she loves it.

The group meets again next week, and I'll get a new block!