Monday, August 1, 2016

Round Robin--Round 3


It's time for another reveal on the 2016 Mini Round Robin going on between myself, Julie at Pink Doxies, Cindy at Stitchin At Home and Sandra at mmm!quilts.  I have to admit I was a little completely intimidated by this block.  I fell in love with the geometric look of Cindy's Oops block the moment she posted about it and secretly hoped it would be the center of her round robin piece.  And much to my delight, she did chose it for her center.  However, this also meant, I had to work on the block eventually.  I did not want to mess this block up...you don't want to be the baby bird that poops in the nest.  That just can't be good.



So at the beginning of the month I received Cindy's block with the addition of Sandra's round.  I loved it!  But I found myself scratching my head, you could very well call this block finished.  I had no idea what to add to it or what colors to use.  I needed inspiration to strike.

With Sandra's block, I already had a design in mind and just had to do a color pull.  With this block, I flipped my process and decided to start with a fabric pull, then decide on a design.  I really didn't have anything in my stash I was happy with, so on an outing to drop David's quilt off to be quilted, I made myself at home in the quilt store and played around in the fat quarters.  The owner's husband even carried over a few boxes for me so I didn't have to get off the floor.


This was what I left the store with.  I loved the greens, yellows and oranges originally in the block, but Sandra opened the door for me by adding just a hint of light lavender in her round.  I really wanted my round to add an even more pop of the contrasting purple.  Now I needed a design.

Since I wanted to play around with the geometric center I started playing around in EQ7 and fell in love with this geometric paper pieced block.


It was fun, it had lots of angles but I feared doing and entire round might be too busy. 


Next I came up with this (obviously not these colors though).  I think this would have worked as well, but just wasn't what I was looking for.  I kept thinking about the first design and it hit me.  BAM!  Black rectangles.  


I would simply do black rectangles in the center and my paper pieced blocks in the corner.  So now my big question was, could I paper piece this block and make it look right.  So I pulled some fabrics from my stash and experimented.


Success! Now I felt more comfortable piecing the 12 blocks and knew what sizes to cut my pieces.
Now to commit to colors.  My first pull looked something like this.


After consulting with David and Sandra, they both felt my purples were a bit too red and I needed to go with a more blue purple.  After 5 minutes of whining to poor Dave, he dissappeared to the back room and returned with two purples from my stash.


Not exactly sold on this, I decided to pull from the yellows I had purchased for the project.


Feeling that the yellow was a more "safe" choice, I decided to poll a few quilting friends to see what they thought.  I just knew they would say the yellow was the better choice.  But at the end of the voting the score was 2 for yellow (me and Beth at Cooking Up Quilts) and 3 for David's purples (David, Sandra and Lara at Buzzin Bumble).  So after admitting David was right.  (That was me whispering so he wouldn't hear),  I went to work constructing my 12 blocks with a bit of seam ripping along the way.  I realized as I was picking all those tiny pieces from the back of the blocks, removing the paper on a small project is much like de-shelling a hard boiled egg that has been cracked.  Both are kind of stinky and tedious but well worth the end result.



I hope Cindy loves the addition as much as I do.  I really love how the black fabrics play along with each other in the three rounds.  This block will be headed in the mail tomorrow to Julie so she can work her magic and add the last round to the block.  Now I'm off to check out what everyone else has added to their blocks.  If you have a chance please hop over and check out what Julie added to Sandra's, Cindy added to mine, and Sandra added to Julie's.




23 comments:

Stitchin At Home said...

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it Tish! It looks perfect! Those black spacers really help set the corners off to perfection. How neat we both used a paper piecing for each others blocks.

Stephanie said...

This looks wonderful Tish! The purple was the right choice.

Cut&Alter said...

Oh Tish this is just amazing. Love your round - the paper piecing with the black is just perfect for the previous two rounds. It's so much fun to see these little quilts come together.

helenjean@midgetgemquilts said...

Love it , living it with you

Lisa J. said...

That's a great addition to Cindy's block. I am really impressed with where you took things.

KaHolly said...

It's a winner! How could she not love it? You really raised the bar for the next round!

Dave S. said...

Hmmm

Sandra Walker said...

Well I was the baby bird that pooped in the nest, not getting my round done until this morning! Egad. It's posted now. Man I love how you photographed this block!!! What you did was incredible, but the photography just makes it even more of a WOW. Glad David was around to help find the right purples. ;-) Geez he's gonna get a big head with all this praise.

Anja @ Anja Quilts said...

Awesome!! Great addition to the project.

Nancy J said...

David is a welcome addition to answer all the " What will I use here" questions. And what a great selection and final decision. Love it.

Beth @ Cooking Up Quilts said...

The purple was the perfect choice! I love the border you added...it is an eye-catching addition. I think you did a great job!

Jen Shaffer said...

"Little bird that pooped in the nest" ROFL I love it!

This block was beautiful and you took it to anothe level with the paper piecing. Absolutist stunning!

Jayne said...

The perfect addition! It looks amazing and you know she is going to love it! Your paper pieced corners and so great!!

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

This is really a perfect addition to the quilt, Tish. I love how the black gives rest in the row and your paper piecing adds to and compliments the center while pulling out the purples... its just was meant to be! It's awesome how collaborative a project can be, sometimes. :)

Sharon said...

Gorgeous! I think your choices are perfect.

Anonymous said...

round robins are quite the design challenge--you have risen to it and done well!

Marlene said...

Love what you have done Tish. The back spacers were such a great choice to balance the paper pieced blocks. The lavender fabric is perfect. Loving these quilts.

Heide said...

What a great decision on you row of the round robin. Love how the black just makes those corners pop. Great job!

Susan said...

Good choices both in design and fabric pulls. The result is awesome! Thanks for sharing on Midweek Makers
Susan

the zen quilter said...

Oh my gosh, Tish - this is amazing. I want to do a round robin - this is really a fun challenge! Love what you added.

Sue said...

You've done a beauiful job, Tish. And a lovely job of walking us through the process as well. Nice to see your LQS waiting on you!!

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

Beautiful addition Tish.....WOW!

Lara B. said...

You always make me crack up laughing in your posts Tish. "The baby bird that poops in the nest" - that is too perfect of an analogy, hahaha!
Your round is amazing and you know how much I loved it in the design. Seeing it actually made up is even better! You met the challenge and then some!

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