notes from Terry Ann: Round Robin Rebels III: Terri's quilt

Terri's Round Robin was the first one to arrive and I had no idea what to expect! I knew she would have red and gray fabrics, and I hoped they wouldn't be too much like the red/gray/turquoise prints that I used for my quilt. There was no need to worry because her fabrics were completely different than mine. Here's what Terri made for her center:

I thought Terri used a panel from one of her new fabric lines - but I found out later that she hand painted the words "Color Outside the Lines". LOVE the shading! She hand appliqued the flower and bird. Here's how I went about adding my border:

The first thing I did was put Terri's block up on my design wall and pin the fat quarters nearby so I could think about it. And think about it. And think about it some more.
I wanted to add more color in my border but everything I tried overpowered the appliqués. Arghhh!
I wanted to introduce another shape – not triangles. How to experiment without cutting up and wasting Terri’s fat quarters? I arranged overlapping folded shapes to test several different ideas without actually cutting anything out. I pieced a few different borders out of scraps from my stash - none of my fabrics were anything close to Terri's colors so it was hard to tell whether or not the borders would work.
Out of everything I tried, I kept going back to the red print because it brought out the bird and flower - but there wasn't enough to really do anything. Went shopping to find a similar red and came up with NOTHING. With all of the shops in the Twin Cities area, how hard could it be to find that red???
Since there wasn't enough fabric to frame the block, I straightened the edges of the red piece and then cut it into four equal strips - I could make four borders and put something at each corner.

Finally got the border done at the last minute – Because the red strips were an odd measurement, I made random log cabin blocks for the corners and trimmed them to fit.

Now I am worried that it is too simple and I should have done something more creative. Wish I had more time and more fabric!! I think it would be a cute little wall quilt right now – hope I didn’t make it too hard for the next person to add something. Out of all of our Round Robin quilts, this was definitely the hardest one for me!

Visit each of our blogs to see what we each added to Terri's quilt. You can also follow us on our Facebook fan page, Round Robin Rebels.

Center: Terri (Whimsicals)

Border #1: Me - you're already here :-) (Atkinson Designs)

Border #2: Gudrun (G.E. Designs)

Border #3:Kari (New Leaf Stitches)

If you'd like to read more about our "No Rules" Round Robin, check out this issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine - it should arrive in your mailbox any day!