Round Robin Fun

I am in my first quilting round robin. We are a group of five and have reached our last round. I have finished the final round on the last quilt top I am to work on, and will be mailing it off today.

This has been a real learning experiece for me. While I know that not everyone on our quilting forum is at equal experience levels, it still surprised me to see these tops when they reached me. Sometimes I would look at the top when it arrived and think "what on earth was she thinking?" when a particular round just didn't seem to be a good choice. And how can I add something to make that look like a good idea?

I will even admit that I think I was the one who added a "what was she thinking?" round on one of the tops. Of course, I didn't think it at the time I added it, but after I sent it off, I decided that what I should have done was....not what I did! ;p Hopefully the person after me was able to tame this wild beast. See what I mean? I added the kites because I thought it would tie into the center better than the braid did. That braid just didn't seem to belong there. I just wasn't feeling it. But, I can see now that I really needed to add something with much less going on, to better compliment the braid and allow it to shine. I hope the person after me figured that out before she added her round!

The biggest challenge of the round robin had to be dealing with the inconsistancies in sizes. It was quite difficult in some cases trying to add pieced borders that would lie flat and not ruffle, as each side measurement was different. I think I managed to pull it off, but some were much more successful efforts.

I am anxiously waiting for the return of my top. The round officially ends mid February, so I may still have a month to wait. I hope it comes home sooner. The verdict is still out on whether I would do this again sometime. I had alot of fun, and I definitely learned from it. We will just have to see what this turned into (my center block for the round robin) before I make that decision.