Round Trip Quilts, round 1

I am part of the Round Trip Quilts group that formed from the New Blogger Group that Plum and June does every year.  We are 8 ladies from the US and Canada that will be making round robin quilts over the next year.  We just finished up the first round of the round robin.

I had the fortune to start on Kim’s quilt.  Kim blogs at Ties That Bind Quilting.  Kim explains the start of her quilt in this blog post, Introducing Round Trip Quilts.  Her inspiration is a color story, and she sent quite a few bright, saturated, and (in my opinion) pretty awesome blocks blocks to start her more modern round robin.  You can see what I received below:

It was such a bright, cheery palette that I just stared at it for awhile.  I had a hard time trying to decide what to add to it that would make sense and be appropriate for her quilt.  Adding on to someone else’s quilt is a big responsibility!  I’d never felt quite this challenged when making my own work, but I was nervous to do something Kim wouldn’t like.

I kept going back and forth about what to add, and then I would second guess all my ideas.  So, I decided to start by pulling fabric and move on from there.

When I asked Kim’s opinion on Instagram (she is tiesthatbindquilting), she said she liked the blue streamers that are second from the bottom and the top purple and pink AMH the best.

I moved on to more research, stalking her pinterest account and researching tons of blocks.

Then, one afternoon I was going through my quilting books trying to decide which ones to keep and which ones to find new homes for, and saw the cover of “Fresh Quilting” by Malka Dubrawsky*. That sewing machine cover on the top right just seemed like the perfect fit for what I was looking for!

I started chopping up my chosen fabrics into squares, and adding the sashing.  Once I started, it was like I couldn’t stop!  It was such a relief to figure out what I wanted to do.

I debated assembling the blocks.  I would have sewn together the sections on the left side of my block, to my block, but the sizing didn’t quite work out and I didn’t want to cut any blocks yet because someone later might make something that fits better.

Mostly, I was just excited that my block looks like it fits in when Elizabeth from Green Cheese Quilting pulls it out of the envelope!

If you want to see more, Round Trip Quilts has a Flickr group and you can follow us on Instagram using #RoundTripQuilts!

The full list of members is below:
Heather at QA Creations
Leanne at Devoted Quilter
Kim at Ties That Bind Quilting
Liz at Green Cheese Quilting
Mary at See Mary Quilt
Christina at WIPs and Tuts
Jennifer at Never Just Jennifer
Chelsea Huckins at Patch the Giraffe

Linking up to: Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Ft. Worth Fabric, Whoop Whoop Fridays @ Confessions of a Quilt Addict, TGIFF, Anything Goes Monday, Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story, WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced, Let’s Bee Social Wednesday @ SewFreshQuilts

* I’ve signed up to be an Amazon Affiliate.  I won’t get rich anytime soon because it gives me less than $0.50 if you buy a book that I link to (within the 24 hour window that you click on it), but I’m hoping that it may help at least offset my web hosting fees.  It doesn’t change your price to purchase, so if you do decide to buy any books I link to, thanks for the support!