Rock that Robin

We quilters come up with all kinds of quilting games to keep ourselves amused.  We take on challenges, design mystery quilts, and participate in sew-alongs.  At some point in your quilting journey you may be asked to join in a Round Robin.  What is a Round Robin?  It’s a quilt made by a committee.  Let me explain. 

A Round Robin is a collaborative quilting project where a quilt is created by several people, each adding a round or border to a central block as it’s passed among quilters.  In other words, you make a block.  This is the center medallion for your quilt.  Then this center is passed to another quilter who will add  bottom, top, and side borders to it.  This process is repeated by another quilter.  Eventually, it’s returned to you, with (hopefully) your quilt center enhanced by all the beautiful borders added to the medallion. 

Round Robins became a “thing” about 20 years or so ago, and interest in them has waxed and waned as time goes on.  You may not hear about any Round Robin for several years and then all of a sudden there are several which pop up on your quilting horizon.  And it’s good to note that a Round Robin is different from a Row Robin.  A Round Robin will look like this:

A center with numerous borders encircling it.

A Row Robin will look like this:

With a Row Robin, quilters design a row of quilt squares or applique or quilt squares and applique and make the row a specifically required length.  The rows are sewn together to form a quilt.  Usually a Row Robin has some sort of theme to it (such as Summertime Fun), but not always.

This blog will hopefully shed some light on two aspects of a Round Robin:  How to start one and how to successfully sew your way through one.

Rules to Round Out Your Robin

The first thing needed is a group of committed quilters.  Most Round Robins work pretty successfully with five to six members.  More group members mean more borders and if you’re not careful you could end up with a huge quilt top.  If you have more than five or six, consider breaking them into two groups.  It’s also helpful (if possible) to have advanced quilters in one group and beginner/intermediate in another.  If this isn’t doable, be sure any beginner quilter who wants to participate has access to an experienced quilter who can mentor them.

The next thing to do is decide on the center block size.  This doesn’t have to be a “do-all-end-all” rule, but it is important to keep the medallion at a reasonable size.  A lot of Round Robins assign center blocks anywhere between 12-inches and 18-inches square.  These sizes make the center block easy to work with, but won’t make the finished quilt too large.  And while we’re discussing the center square, let me throw in a personal frustration with some medallions.  Please – for the love of all things quilty – don’t make your center square the holder of all prime numbers.  In other words, don’t make the center 13-inches, 17-inches, 19-inches, or any other prime numbers square.  Prime numbers can only be divided by themselves, which makes constructing a pieced border difficult.  The quilter receiving your block will have to figure out a “floater” (narrow border) which will bring the prime-numbered center square up to a size that’s easier to work with. Another issue which you may want to address is can the center block be a rectangle?  This may sound a bit picky, but if you have beginner/intermediate quilters, those folks may be much more comfortable working with a square than a rectangle.  An advanced group of quilters are more likely to just go with the rectangle without too much worry.

Center sizes and participants decided on, now it’s time to get down to the nitty gritty. 

Some Round Robins have a lot of rules.  Some have a few.  And among close quilting friends, there may be none.  It all depends.  Personally, I think a few rules are good to have as they set some guidelines and expectations.  I do think that each participant should prepare a “kit” to go with their block.  This “kit” can be a bag or box and in it place your block and fabrics you want used to make your borders. 

Let’s pause for a second and talk about the fabric.  While it’s nearly impossible to perfectly calculate the amount of fabric needed for all the borders (because who knows what some of your creative quilting friends will come up with?), do try to have yardage as well as fat quarters, 5-inch charms, etc., in your box.  A variety of fabric cuts always work better than say three 1-yard cuts of fabric.  Remember this will be your quilt top when the Round Robin is over and you do want it to be something you love.  Second, even with the best fabric intentions, there will come a time when the material in your box may run short.  If that happens, do you want the other participants to call you and you re-supply with your stock, or is it okay if they pull from their own stash?  This is important, so I also think it’s imperative you have a note in your box with your contact information on it, as well as your fabric preferences, such as “no browns” or “no batiks” or “my favorite color is blue.”  This gives the other quilters a bit of latitude if they can pull from their own stash to bless your quilt. You may also want to include additional information such as your favorite quilt block, your not-so-favorite quilt block, and any techniques you don’t particularly care for – such as applique or prairie points, etc.*

Now for turnaround time.  Each quilter in your group will have a chance to add borders to your center square.  This means the blocks will need to be swapped out and given to another quilter in the group.  Some groups give their members one month to complete the borders and hand it off to another quilter.  Some Round Robins allow for more time. My “rule” for handling the turnaround time is to assess the groups’ members.   If everyone works full time or has lots of family demands, a two-month turnaround time may work best for everyone and alleviate any stress.   Regardless, I think the last border needs a two-month deadline because it is the largest border and will require more time. 

Finally, the group needs to decide if there will be “progress reveals.” When it’s time to swap kits, will everyone show what they’ve done or will they wait until the Round Robin is complete and everyone reveal their completed Round Robin then? 

Now that some simple ground rules have been established, let’s talk about successfully completing your Robin.

How to Be Successful with Your Round Robin

Round Robins are fun.  They stretch your expertise and creativity as a quilter.  If they sound like something you’re interested in and like to try, I encourage you to do so.   However, before jumping in headfirst, I also encourage you to think about a few things – with the first being your own time.  Do you have availability in your schedule for a Round Robin?  While we all know life can happen and things can change on the spin of a dime, overall do you have the time to commit to designing borders for what is essentially someone else’s quilt?  You can’t just throw on plain fabric strips as borders in a Round Robin.  Nope.  There’s some piecing or some applique which needs to be involved. 

The second issue is communication.  Be sure to reach out to the person whose quilt is under your needle if you have any questions.  The Round Robin participant may have a list of likes and dislikes in their kit, but still sometimes questions arise.  Don’t pretend to be a mind reader.  Get in touch with the person and ask your questions.  Trust me, they won’t mind answering any concerns. 

Third, don’t allow your Round Robin to become just another UFO.  Try to, as much as you can, already have a finishing plan for your quilt.  Having the backing, a quilting plan, and even the binding prepped makes finishing the quilt so much easier.  Of course, you may not know the exact final measurements until your quilt is back in your hands, but you probably have some idea – especially if there have been several reveals during the Round Robin. 

I realize not every quilter works like I do, but I will share with you the way I handle Round Robins.  As soon as I have the quilt kit back in my studio, I pull the quilt out and place it on my cutting table.  I look at it closely, following any type of theme the other participants may have begun with their stitching.  I also take out the fabric from the kit and arrange it around the center square to give me an idea of what I have left to work with – what are my largest “chunks” of fabric, and which ones are my “scrappies” that I could enlist in  an applique process? Finally I read any notes/preferences the block owner has left for me so I can be sure to follow her guidelines. 

Then I let it simmer for a short while.  My cutting table is in a location I walk by several times a day when I’m in my studio.  As I’m just kind of taking it in, my quilty subconscious is hard at work – thinking, analyzing, and creating.  After a few days (usually five to seven days), I revisit the block and boot up my EQ8.  By this point, I usually have some kind of idea about what I want to do.  EQ8 helps me sketch these ideas out so I get a really good image of how the quilt will look with my borders – especially if I take a picture of the quilt center and load that into EQ8.  I check and double check my borders, contact the owner with any questions or concerns and get to work.

I’m also one of those quilters who tend to be hyper-focused if I have a deadline.  I will work almost exclusively on the Round Robin until I am finished.  This way it’s one more thing off my quilting plate and I can work on my own projects with no guilty feelings. 

Round Robins are fun, challenging, and will definitely stretch you as a quilter.  I love them for all those reasons plus the fact they put me in the designer’s seat.  I make all the quilty decisions about the borders I will add on, all the while keeping in mind the theme of the quilt and the work the previous Round Robin participants have done.  If you have the opportunity and the time, I would encourage you to give a Round Robin a try. 

Until Next Week,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Felix

*I think the most negative experience I ever had with a Round Robin had to do with fabric – or a lack of it.  I was participating in one several years ago that my local guild was offering.  At that time, the group leader stated, “additional fabric is optional,” knowing that most of us had abundant stashes we wouldn’t mind pulling from – which overall was true.  One of the participants had a larger than required center block and she wanted us to use only batiks – which are more expensive than quilting cottons.  And she included no batiks in her kit – it was just her center square.  While I’m normally not a petty person (no, really, I’m not), I drew the line at this.  I don’t keep a lot of batiks in my stash, but I had a bit of yardage in a blue batik.  I cut plain strips as narrow as I could get away with and sewed them on the center.  While I think it’s great to pull from your own stash to help round out a Round Robin’s borders, I do think it’s insensitive and selfish to put the entire burden of your quilt’s borders  on the participants.