Quilting

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I have always wanted to participate in a round robin. Years ago, my guild, Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association, ran a round robin and it was so fun to see what was created. In recent years I've enjoyed seeing online round robins, including the Kids Quilt Round Robin that I co-hosted. Yet I had never myself participated. So this spring when SCVQA announced another round robin opportunity I signed up to participate.

Five of us joined the round robin and we met in May to iron out the details. We drew from an assortment of potential parameters to create a set of rules for each round.

1st quilter: starting block/unit
2nd quilter: pinwheels or something from nature
3rd quilter: quilter's choice
4th quilter: flying geese or four patch
5th quilter: snowball or log cabin

I decided to look over my many WIPs to find something that would be suitable for the center of a medallion round robin. I settled on this 20" Fierce Feathered Star block (from the Snowflake Sampler pattern by Jess Zeigler) that I made during a sew along in August 2017. I'd been intending to finish it into a floor pillow, but decided it would be a fun center to a medallion quilt. I added the border strips to preserve my points and bring it up to 22 1/2" x 22 1/2" unfinished (since it wasn't quite perfectly sized).

We each completed an information form with details about likes, dislikes, and wishes. I wrote lots of notes on mine, including... Scrappy, modern, improv, or precise piecing. Geometric prints, solids, blenders in grass green, navy, teal, and pale blue. No solid white. My block is 22 1/2" square and I'd love for the quilt to finish 60" x 60" or larger.

We also decided there would be no progress shots shown along the way, online or in person. We will pass the projects to the next quilter at each monthly guild meeting, so we will finish in October and present the finished quilt tops back to their owners at that meeting.

Here's a peek at the fabric I supplied with my project. (Can you tell my love for blender fabrics!?) A couple pieces were small scraps of fabric from the block. I didn't feel like I had enough fabric/variety to require the group use only my fabric, so they may choose to add their own fabric. I also put a note to let me know if they'd like me to provide more fabric since I'm open to picking up some more options.

The initial projects were passed on to the second quilters at the June guild meeting. I'll be sharing the starting block I received from Callista tomorrow.

Have you ever participated in a round robin? I'd love to hear about your experience.

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Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs has kicked off her latest mystery quilt. I love a mystery quilt and I especially love the Meadow Mist Community. I may not really have the time for this, but I couldn't resist shopping my stash last week to pull fabrics to participate. I've appreciated the pacing of monthly clues in Cheryl's previous mystery quilts and look forward to giving this one a go.

I'll be using Kona Black for my background. (I'll need to buy more.) And these three prints will be my fabrics A, B, and C. I'm leaning toward the mustard for fabric A since it's the smallest fabric requirement of the three. I'll be choosing border, binding, and backing fabrics later. I'll make an effort to choose those from stash also, but I'm itching to add a stripe to this in some way and I don't think I have one that coordinates.

If you've never participated in a mystery quilt along, this is a great one. And Cheryl lets you take a peek if you'd prefer an un-mystery quilt. ;-)

I've linked up to the Mosaic Mystery July Fabric Linkup. Click over to see the many beautiful palettes people will be using.

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It has been over a month since I've sewn. Okay, to be honest, I've sewn a tiny, little bit in that time. I hand stitched half of the back of a binding on a mini quilt. And I sewed eight 2 1/2" seams, the beginning of a charity quilt block. But I haven't done any real sewing. This is not for lack of options.

There have been lots of reasons. I finished up my June projects early in the month. Then I went to Ireland for two weeks. Ireland was delightful. It was also a pretty active trip with over 1100 miles of driving (on the wrong side of the street!). I came home pretty exhausted.

Since I didn't drop my sewing machine for service while I was gone, I did that the Monday after we returned home. I was in recovery mode from travel and didn't have much energy anyway. Plus I have a backup machine. (Which I apparently really didn't want to use, because I never set it up in the week I was without my machine.)

I'm also in recovery mode from a major remodel and there is a lengthy to do list of things for us to do around the house. So we're slowly chipping away at that: move in the bookshelves, purchase a coffee table, unpack these boxes. What I want to be doing is sewing. But that hasn't happened. I just haven't had the energy. Everywhere I look, there's something that needs attention. That is exhausting.

Every time I've walked into my studio in the last two weeks I've tidied instead of sewing. This is so unlike me. Part of recovering from the remodel involved installing a wall of cabinets for storage in the studio and sorting through everything that resides in that room. Only a small pile of stuff remains untouched. I guess I really want to get it all squared away before I sew.

Paired with my lack of sewjo, the past two weeks I've found myself mindlessly scrolling on Instagram and Facebook all too often. It's so easy to do and is a complete time suck. Enough of that! (I do love seeing what people are creating, and interacting with friends online... but mindless scrolling is different.)

Lastly, I've been waiting for some fabric to arrive for my next deadline. Yesterday I opened my box of lovely Island Batik fabric and other goodies. I recorded my unboxing video and will share it once it is edited. Having a new pile of beautiful fabric to play with may just help the sewjo. So will the looming project deadlines. ;-)

P.S. Newsletter readers... I owe you one. It's coming later this week. (If you don't already get my newsletters, you can subscribe here to keep up to date with me and to receive color and design inspiration.)

This photo is a picture of Johnstown Castle in County Wexford, Ireland. The photo above was taken outside Dingle. We stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of the beautiful view.