Thursday, February 02, 2017

Living with Quilts: Round Robin

Do yourself a favor and never, ever join a round robin quilt group that has me as a member.  I am apparently the kiss of death in a round robin quilt group.  If I'm in a group, whoever has my quilt will move, get sick, or (no, I'm not kidding) die while they have custody of my quilt causing me to never see my quilt again.  I am also missing a quilt because (again, not kidding) "I'm sorry!  My dog ate your quilt!"  I have participated in many round robin quilt groups, put tons of effort into other people's quilts, and lost all of my quilts...

Except one.

This is the only round robin quilt that has found its way back home:


This quilt dates back to 2001 or so.  I pieced the center star and the other members of my group added a sawtooth border, an applique border, a star border, and a trapezoid border.  I added the final blue/purple border and quilted it.  I had no plans for this quilt so it sat folded in a pile for a year or so.

Behind this quilt was a hole where the hard-wired smoke alarm (that doesn't have a battery so it won't die) used to be and we took it out because... wait for it... it died.  After buying this house we had approximately $0.87 in the bank and couldn't afford to both buy a new smoked detector and fix the wall.  We installed a new smoke detector and hung the quilt so the quilt covered the ugly hole in the wall.  Problem SOLVED!

We have since fixed the wall and painted that hallway purple to match this quilt.  I see this every time I walk upstairs to the bedrooms and it just belongs there.


7 comments:

Roni in the quilt room said...

I would be honored to be in a round robin group with you.

Tish Stemple said...

I've only participated in one round robin and let me say, round robins are just stressful, fun, but stressful. The idea of creating on the fly and praying that the original owner will like your vision, is crazy. I'm floored that you've had so much bad luck with the round robins. YIKES! But rest assure, I too would do a round robin with you any day of the week :)

Crystal_235 said...

Love the quilt! I've never participated in a round robin.

Judy P. said...

I've participated in two round robins and in both cases did not get my quilt back. Third time won't be the charm. Good luck!

Vireya said...

Your round robin experience is so sad! I'm glad you got this one back. It's lovely.

I can't imagine myself participating in a round robin, and your story doesn't make me likely to change my mind any time soon!

Dora, the Quilter said...

I took part in a Round Robbin over 20 years ago, worked hard on the quilt tops of others and received in return......a mess! I don't want to do it again either!

The Crafty Creek said...

This quilt is beautiful!All these comments are somewhat off putting of ever trying a round robin, I thought it was bad enough when I took part in a pin cushion swop and never received one, but a quilt...!!!