The 2026 round robin

The last Heart of Vermont guild meeting was this past Tuesday, and we had the reveal of our 2025-26 round robin.  One person in the group couldn't make it, but we showed her quilt anyway, and we all took home our own quilts which were begun in the fall. 

I started with a left over 14" square from last year's Optimism quilt along sampler designed by Aby Dollinger.  Then it passed along to the other five members of the group monthly or bi-monthly depending on the size.  Each made a round with fabric I provided.  As you can see, it's another purple quilt, my favorite. 

Toward the end of the nine months, we had two months to work on a round, which some bigger quilts needed.  In the next to last round of Diane's quilt, I made a ton of nine patches in 30s fabrics, and for Marie's last round, I made quite a few friendship stars in red, white, and blue.  It's really a lot of fun to work on these round robin quilts with fabric other than my own.  Everyone does her best work, which is really nice.  As I said at the meeting, "it's a matter of trust," and it usually comes out great.

I didn't know some of the quilters in this year's group very well, and it was nice to get to know them through their quilts.  Here are five of the six of us, with me holding Marie's quilt top.  Our red ribbons denote that Ginny and I were "founding members" of the guild back in 2008.

I'm not sure when I'll get to my round robin quilt top or if I'll add another round to make it bed-sized.  These days I peck away at quilting my Dear Jane which is coming along pretty well.  We're heading to Colorado for a week to visit Mom, and I hope to finish Dear Jane all together by the end of July.  I have a few small projects I'd like to work on but meanwhile, I'll just think about what I'll do with the purple quilt.

Paper pieced stars

On a visit to the quilt shop last fall, I picked up a book of patterns for paper pieced stars.  I set it aside with some fat quarters that I received from the board of the state quilt guild as a "retirement" gift after my term as president was up.  I worried that the blocks would look a bit washed out so I varied the background from neutral to periwinkle and set the blocks on point.  I added a little goldish brown to the mix and ended with a brighter periwinkle.  For the setting triangles I used foundation papers for 3" triangles which were much easier to make than the stars.  Once quilted, this will be a nice table runner, but unfortunately, it's now waiting in the closet along with several other projects.  I'll try to get a picture today.

I attended quilt guild Tuesday night and showed the Triple Barn Star quilt I made a few months ago. 

Also at guild, I picked up the last round robin quilt - Marie's - to work on, and I've been making friendship star blocks ever since.  It's red(ish), light gray, and blues, with a large pieced star in the middle.  I'm not sure what Marie plans to do with the quilt, but I do know she served in the Army during the Vietnam era.  Several of the rounds have been pretty plain, so the stars seemed quite appropriate to me.  But the quilt is around 48" x 48" so there are a lot of 4.5" stars to make.  I assume they'll take me a few days of solid work to finish.

Meanwhile, there are household and garden things to attend to.  The weather has been increasingly nice, so I need to get out and clean up the flower beds.  My knees have been giving me trouble lately, so I'll take it easy.  We have taken a few walks in the neighborhood, too, which has been nice after the long winter where we hardly walked at all.  

I finished reading Jennifer Chiaverini's latest book, The Patchwork Players.  It's very easy going which is nice after reading The Bullet That Missed, the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series.  The plotlines of those books can be very confusing with quite a few characters, but everything comes together in the end.  I thought our book group was planning to read the fourth book in the series next, so I thought I'd try to catch up before reading that one.  Instead, we're reading The Tokyo Express which isn't available on Kindle.  I'm reading a used paperback and hope I'll to finish before we meet next week.  We have a social week ahead with dinner out a couple times, so I'm not sure how much progress I'll make.  So far, it's moving along nicely, and I like the Japanese background.

A busy weekend

I didn't get a lot of sewing done over the last few days.  I did work a bit on the guild round robin quilt - Donna's - and hope to finish this week.  We have two months to work on this round because the quilts are getting bigger.  I like to work on them as soon as I get them and not wait til the last minute.  Donna's quilt is 46" square already, and my border will be about 5" all the way around, between blocks and a coping strip.  It's all sweet 1930s fabrics which I haven't worked with in a long time.  I hunted around for matching fabric for the coping strip but didn't have anything that looked right.  So I am using one of hers before I add the very scrappy uneven nine patch border.  It's looking good so far.

Saturday, our group held a genealogy help session at the library in the morning, and then Paul and I headed over snowy roads to Burlington.  We went with friends Bob and Pauline to a play, Murder on the Orient Express, which was quite good - funny. and well-acted.  Afterwards, we all had a belated Valentine's Day Middle Eastern dinner at a favorite restaurant and then watched a more serious version of the same story starring Sir Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot.   We spent the night and came home after breakfast.  It was a nice getaway.

Today it's off to the grocery store before knuckling down with taxes.  Ugh!  But the sooner it gets done, the happier I'll be.  

I told myself...

 ...I wasn't going to participate in the guild Block of the Month this year.  I just end up with too many orphans.  Then I realized I didn't need to put a slip of paper into the bag of names for the drawing.  So today I did make the block and will put it into the drawing at the October meeting without entering.

I did end up with two orphan pinwheel blocks from the cutoffs, and I will use them somewhere - on pot holders or mug rugs - eventually.   I did a little complaining about the requirement that the background fabric be a fall batik fabric, thinking that I didn't have any.  But I did find something in my stash that worked although the contrast with the darker fabric makes that fabric, which was supposed to be green, look blue.

This morning I finished machine quilting Rows D through F of my Dear Jane.  I'll roll it up with the first three rows and proceed... eventually.  I want to work on a few other projects first.  I offered to coordinate a Round Robin or a Block Robin for the guild, with a deadline to sign up of October 1.  No one jumped right on it, but maybe some people will by next week.  I enjoy either type of exchange project   It's a challenge to build on someone else's project, using someone else's choice of fabric.  The last Round Robin I worked on was mostly my least favorite color - brown - but I chose to add a little blue to the border and really liked it.

I received more of the "Flora" fabric from the Cute Little Fabric Shop in Utah yesterday, so I can work on the Dresden top and the lily block, both using parts of that line.  I'm thinking the lily block will end up as a table runner, but I'm not sure yet.

As I write this, I see some guys on top of the house across the street cleaning the chimney.  That's a sure sign of fall!  Our leaves are beginning to change but have a way to go yet.  This morning it was about 45 when I got up and today's high is to be in the high 60s.  I do love fall, but I'm not wild about what it turns into!

The Christmas round robin

This year I participated in another round robin with five other members of the Heart of Vermont guild.  I have participated in several over the years and find it fun and challenging.  This time around, I had a nice Dresden Plate orphan block waiting to be used as well as a variety of holiday fabrics.  With six people and nine months to finish, we were able to take two months for the last few rounds.  This was great because, as the quilts grow, we often need more time to work on those rounds.  

I am always amazed at the work people put into these projects, and I enjoy getting to know different quilters through their work on the quilt tops.  While I certainly would not have added the borders group members added, I like the way my quilt turned out.  It measures about 50" x 50" and will look nice on our dining room table during the holidays.

One of the group members, Tammy, owns a long arm machine and generously offered to quilt everyone's quilts for free.  But I wanted to quilt mine myself, using my walking foot.  I find medallion quilts fairly easy to handle because I can anchor the rounds in the ditches and then go back and fill the borders in with quilting.

I especially enjoyed quilting around the "ornaments" border although I didn't go around the smaller cathedral windows.  I just quilted those 4" blocks in the ditch because of their bulk.  There was one green and white "ornament" left over which I turned into a signature block on the back, adding all the names of the participants.  This was a successful group which I'd love to work with on another quilt in the coming year.  We'll see how they all feel about it in September.

Although we had a reveal of all of the tops at our last guild meeting before the summer break, we will be showing our finished quilts at the September meeting.  Mine's all set to go, and now I'm quilting another UFO that's been waiting patiently in the closet.  It's been hot and humid, so the quilting room is the place to be.

Class project: table runner and a bunch of 16 patch blocks

I never did settle on a class block pattern that I could do over and over again.  That's just not what I enjoy doing.  I wanted to try making half rectangles, and the new tool from Creative Grids works really well.  It even came with directions for using the tool to make wonky sides for blocks which I plan to try sometime.  

I ended up making a table runner sampler with the blue and orange blocks for the class.   It has a modern look, and I will either give it away or try to sell it.  I'll try to make a back for it soon (peach?) and decide on a binding (more peach?) soon.   

I enjoyed the class even though my final project isn't great.  Playing around with a very simple block was really fun and encouraged me to try new approaches to the old traditional patterns.  I can see applying the techniques to churn dashes and more.

I also ran up a few 16 patch blocks in blue and orange to add to my ongoing stash of four patches.  I'll put them together... manana.

Today I'm taking the Christmas ribbon star quilt (60" x 60") to the quilt shop so Marie can quilt it for me.  That will reduce my to-be-quilted items hanging in the closet.  I'll also leave Renee's round robin quilt top there for her to pick up.  I like the way it ended up, and I don't usually like brown.  The blue makes it look great.  

I made the last round of 8" blocks which almost doubled the size of the quilt.  I like the way someone put it on point, and the repeat of the squares in two of the borders made by different people.   When I received the quilt, it seems awfully small to me.  I hope Renee will add to it to make it just a bit bigger still.

My round robin quilt is another Christmas one, and because it's a medallion, I think I can quilt it myself using my Elna.  Now that the air conditioner is in the sewing room window, that room will be my haven for the rest of the summer.

Guild round robin reveal

Tuesday's monthly local guild meeting featured a reveal of the round robin six of us have been passing around since October.  I didn't know all of the women involved, but everyone did a fabulous job.  I now have two Christmas quilts to finish (for whom is the question!).

This started with the Dresden Plate in the center and was surrounded by borders.  Quilters could add fabric if they wished, and, while I don't really care for brown or gold, they do work in this quilt.  I really like the cathedral windows border.

Tammy, one of the other quilters, offered to long arm each person's quilt for free, but I think I'll quilt mine myself.  Medallion quilts are fairly easy for me to quilt with my walking foot, and this isn't a gigantic quilt anyway.  I don't think I'll add to it, except for the binding, of course.  For now, it's waiting for me to create a back and think about how I'll quilt it.  

Yesterday's project was to finish the hanging sleeve for Hankie Quilt #2 which is going to the Billings Farm and Museum, and today's is to finish a back for the other Christmas quilt, Ribbon Star.  Luckily, it's not as hot/humid as it was earlier this week.  My sewing room needs its air conditioning installed, but is fine today.

Last round robin

 

Due to yesterday's snow (we got about 12"), I made good headway on Renee's round robin, and today I finished.  I was initially dismayed because I don't really like brown, but this turned out pretty nice.  I hope she likes it.  At about 44" square, it could be a big wallhanging.  If she wants to add another border, it will be a nice lap quilt.  It's so big that I couldn't really get a good picture, but I hope this gives some idea of how it looks.  The scrappy Jacob's Ladder blocks I added are 6" finished.

I enjoy doing these round robins because they challenge my creativity.  It's fun to work with someone else's color and style choices, too.  I have never made a blue and brown quilt and probably never will.   

There are quite a few newbies in the guild, and I hope we can persuade some to try joining a round robin next year. Our group this year had six members, two of whom I didn't know, so it has been fun getting acquainted through their fabric.   

Round robin

I enjoy working on round robins and organized one for our quilt guild this year.   Six people, including me, signed up, and so far I've worked on four quilts started by guild members.  Now that the quilts are bigger, we have two months to work on the last two rounds.  I have Soni's quilt to work on now, and it's gorgeous so far.  She said she would prefer that we make our borders no wider than 3", and I love the variety of batiks she included.  

I used a Seminole technique for my round and love the result.  Hope she does, too!   Years ago, I had a wonderful book on Seminole patchwork that I loaned to someone who never gave it back.  I bought another one and stupidly loaned it to someone who also never returned it.  Mr. Google came to the rescue yesterday!  

It wasn't as hard as it looks, but I'm really glad it's finished.  Each of those little squares was just 1" and the resulting strip is very stretchy.  The border ended up at 2" unfinished, and I'm going to leave it as is for the next person to deal with.  I like the way it looks on Soni's quilt.  

And I wonder how my quilt is!  I pulled the Christmas Dresden plate block out of my UFO box and added some fabric back in September, and now I hardly remember what it looked like.  The big reveal will be at the May meeting. Hope I can get a few more UFOs finished before it comes home to add to the pile.

Photos at last

 We finally had a sunny day!  Never mind the fact that it was 16 degrees this morning.  We had to wait for a very heavy coating of frost to melt before we could go out and take these pictures.

Here is the trellis quilt I made out of 5" charms received in a swap with other squares from my stash.  

I quilted it on a grid which was very easy.  The borders were quilted with wavy lines.

I had been fretting about quilting the medallion quilt I've been working on most of the year.  It was a virtual round robin that I organized with an online group.  Each month, we'd have an assignment (e.g., squares, triangles, etc.).  

After the last border, I decided it was big enough, so I added some plain borders and then pondered how to quilt it.  Measuring 79" x 79" by now, it would be a lot to do on my home machine, even though I've found that medallions are easier for me to quilt than sashed blocks.   I do want to hand quilt the center which is sashiko embroidery, but my longarm friend Marie says she can work around that.  

It really requires two people to hold it, but Paul did manage to hang on to half for this photo.  You'll see the whole thing when it's finished.  The binding has been cut and sewn already and is in a bag for whenever it comes home from Marie's.   I told her there is no hurry, but she is very speedy so I'll probably see it back here soon.

We also took some photos of a little quilt I made for someone for Christmas, but I will wait to show it after it's been opened, just in case s/he sees this blog!

Round Three

I have been appliqueing little melons all month for the Virtual Round Robin.  Melon shapes were the assignment for July, and I wish I had decided to make vines with leaves instead of multiple melon shapes!  But they are done now and attached to the quilt, thank goodness.  I love blue and white quilts and look forward to the succeeding rounds, whatever they'll be.  I have mixed in a few lighter dark blues to give the quilt some sparkle.  The quilt is now 38.5" x 38.5".

When I quilt this, I hope to quilt in a few extra melons in the plainer pieces.  It's now too big to get all in one photo, but I  plan several more rounds before I feel it's finished.  There are just 10 days left in the month, and then I'll be working on the August round.  Let's hope it takes less time.

Decisions

I got my "block robin" blocks back on Saturday, after touring around the area with five other quilters in one of my guilds since October.  Every month, I made a block or two myself to go along with the ones others were making.  Now I need to figure out how to put them all together.

The spaces in the middle are where I plan to make three more blocks similar to the rainbow one so that the three Dresden Plate blocks become a focal point for the quilt.  I'll put that together and then figure out where all the other blocks are going and how many more I need to make.  I would like to end up with a twin-sized quilt at least.  The blocks finish at 9" and I still have about 1/2 yard plus scraps of the black background left.  To sash or not to sash?  Cornerstones? On-point or straight on?

I need to go to the quilt shop on Thurs. to give Marie my Good and Plenty II quilt to longarm.  While there, I'll look and see if they still have some of the black left.  That may well guide my decisions.  Meanwhile, I'll enjoy moving the blocks around, squaring them all up to size, and thinking about the possibilities.  

Progress!

Yesterday, I finished putting the last borders onto the red, white and blue medallion quilt I started working on last winter.  I had found an oversized "Goose in the Pond" block in red and white in my pizza box of leftover quilt blocks.  From there, I added borders, using fabric my Dutch sister sent me and some scraps in my stash.  At one point in the spring, I put it away because I knew it should be bigger but wasn't sure what to do next.  At the Vermont Quilt Festival this summer, I saw just the fabric I wanted for an appliqued border, and that's what I've been working on piecemeal ever since.  It has grown to about 84" x 84" and is ready to quilt.  That's what I hope to be doing over the next month or so.

But first!  I need to finish stitching a facing down on the back of an old wool appliqued UFO that also needs a little hand quilting.  It was an 8" square that I finished long ago.  I needed to do a little embroidery and, when I tried using gold metallic thread, it looked awful.  I took it all out and used plain gold cotton thread instead.  Much better.  A colorful border makes the final little hanging about 11".

My row robin bookshelf quilt returned home Saturday after a trip to Washington state, Australia (two stops there), London, North Carolina, and Florida.  These quilters did some amazing work!  I am anxious to put it together but will try to restrain myself until after I get the Goose in the Pond quilt done.  I did buy a tan "Quilters Linen" fabric (I love this Kaufmann line) for the outer shelving and sides of the bookcase.   It's going to be fun to look at.

Goose in the Pond

 

Earlier this year, I took an 18" red, white and blue block out of my "Orphan" box and put it on my design wall.  Every time I worked on something else, "Goose in the Pond" in red, white and blue called to me.  Last week during the big snow storm, I started thinking that it would make a good center for a medallion quilt.   My sister Jacqueline had sent me two nice pieces of red fabric that would go well with it, and the various books and websites I looked at offered more ideas than I could deal with.

I designed it as a one-woman round robin with the following rounds:

  1.  Blue and white stripes with mitered corners which I sewed by hand to make the stripes match

  2.  Hourglass blocks in red/white stripes and white

  3.  Friendship stars with white backgrounds and square-in-a-square corner blocks using a fabric printed like redwork

  4.  More blue and white stripes but perpendicular this time

  5.  Chubby piano keys in various shirtings and red scraps

  6.  Blue and red strips with friendship star blocks in the corners

You can see the outer border corner a little better in this picture.  Now that it measures 58" square, I have stopped for a while - or maybe forever.  Maybe not.   Maybe 12" Ohio Star blocks around the outside?  The current last round is fairly heavy and dark; I kept moving it out to the edge for balance. 

This was an exercise in measuring.  One night even I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking about the measurement of the next round. 

This was a good process for me - look at an orphan block for several months and finally get inspired to use it.  Maybe I'll do it again soon with three 12" Civil War blocks that seem too nice to use embedded in a quilt back.

Two finishes

Yesterday was sunny so I set up my quilt rack and took some photos.  It turned out to be way too windy, so I had to take them indoors - OK, but not as light as I'd hoped.  Here's the round robin quilt that I'm going to send to my cousin Jeanne.   I hope she likes it!

I love the fabric called "Lady Slipper Lodge" but I have quite a bit left over, including a charm pack.  I may give it away sometime.  This round robin involved four other quilters who greatly enhanced the simple  "trefoil" block I made for the center.  I did the outer borders, beginning with the darker purple one, to get it to double bed size. 

I think it took about a month to quilt, very carefully on my home machine.  I used a lot of thread!  The back is simply muslin.  I bought several yards of 90" wide muslin for backs and still have enough for at least one more quilt. 

Next is the throw I made with rows and fabric from this year's Row by Row Experience, an international activity sponsored by quilt shops.  Each shop had a unique row and a fabric license plate.  I exchanged plates with some quilters in the US and Canada and incorporated some into the quilt.  I still have plates left over that might make a cute tote bag. 

I used a "quilt as you go" method on this one, quilting each row individually and then putting them together.  The center rows are all from Vermont shops, and I loved quilting Dorothy's yellow brick road.  The row on the left came from a shop in Colorado, but I adapted it a bit due to its very complicated pattern.  I needed one more row, so browsed online at shops in New England's rows.  One shop's row was simply four maple leaves, so I created my own.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but all the stems are made from the license plate fabric used at the top and bottom and as the binding. 

There are still three crib-sized quilt tops hanging in my closet waiting to be quilted.  I hope to start on one this weekend although I may work on something smaller today.

Keeping cool by quilting

This is one of the 24" log cabin blocks I took to the state guild meeting in May.  Everyone's blocks were cut in four, and we each took home as many as we brought.  I put my 16 blocks together in half an hour one morning (when I was feeling super energetic!).  Then I used some scrap blocks to extend the quilt to a size useful for the Parkinsons Comfort Quilt Project.

Wednesday, I sandwiched the little quilt and started quilting it quite simply, just down the centers of the logs.  It's been hot and humid lately, so the sewing room with its AC has been the place to be.  I finished quilting yesterday and now need to find something for the binding.  I'll set it aside while I work on the Lady Slipper Lodge round robin quilt which I pin basted yesterday, using the big table at the Old Labor Hall.

Meanwhile, whenever it's cooler out, I've been in the garage, covering my rusty old bicycle with strips of fabric from my "string" bin.  Studio Place Arts is organizing a "Soft Bomb" event in conjunction with Heritage Days at the end of July.  I offered to put my bike in a little-used rack behind the library.  The rack has a red metal spiral between two granite ends shaped like a Jack-in-the-box.  It's so cute that no one uses it.  Maybe my installation will encourage people to begin doing so.  Advance publicity stated that there will be a "quilted bicycle," which isn't accurate,although I may use an orphan square to fashion a seat.  So far, it's looking good, but the process is slow.  I worry about the effect of rain or morning dew.  Will it hold up?  

A work in progress

Please forgive the wierd angle of this photo.  It is on top of a finished quilt which makes taking a photo a bit deceptive.  I may have shown you this round robin quilt after it came back to me.  I started with the very simple center block, using parts of a charm pack from Moda's "Lady Slipper Lodge" fabric line.  I added various coordinating scraps and sent it on its way to four other quilters from an online group.  They made the succeeding rounds, and the quilt came back to me about a month ago.   I love the variety that comes from a group project, and this group is one of the best - careful, timely, precise.

I spread the top out on the bed in my sewing room and then spent a lot of time looking at it, trying to figure out what to do next.  It measured 42" square when it arrived home, and I don't really have much use for a wallhanging here.  So I decided on the 8" "Indian Hatchet" squares from www.quilterscache.com.  This necessitated searching online for more "Lady Slipper Lodge" fabric which I found on www.etsy.com.  Both the yardage and another charm pack arrived quickly, and I had enough fabric from another coordinating line to make the plain border (really a wide "coping strip").

The top now measures 65" square.  Three plain borders of varying sizes - green, off-white print, and purple prints - should finish it to about 80".  I will quilt it myself, albeit slowly, and I hope to cut a wavy edge after quilting.  It looks very summery to me but perhaps that's just my own perspective.  We've had some hot weather lately and even put the air conditioning in the sewing room.  That's where I'll be if we get another heat wave.

Round robin is home

Last fall, I made four pineapple blocks as the center of a round robin.  I have always wanted to make a pineapple quilt but hate paper piecing.  I made it through the four blocks, and that was enough for me.  I find taking the paper out at the end a real chore - and messy.  The center was packed away with a lot of miscellaneous scraps and a bunch of shirting, and then it made the rounds of five members of my local quilt guild.  We had the reveal the other night, and I'm really pleased with the result.

Marie, Lynn, Margaret, Paula, and Pat each added her own stamp to the quilt.   At the guild meeting, the last person to work on the quilt got up and explained what was done during each round.  This was the first time the owner had seen her quilt, and there were lots of oohs and aahs.  I love all the different quilts I worked on this year.  Maybe we encouraged a few more people to give it a try.

Now the challenge for me is how to quilt it.  I have hung it in the closet with the other UFOs.  I think I now have five waiting.  This summer I hope to make some headway.  My sewing room has air conditioning so is sometimes the best place to be on a hot day.  On this one, I will probably stitch in the ditch to hold the rounds together and then do a variety of quilting.  It should be fun.

What to do?

For the last few months my purple row robin has been traveling around the continent, from Ontario to Indiana to North Carolina and places in between.  Now it is home and I don't know what I will do to finish it.  I could simply sew all the rows together, add a thin border and leave it at that.  I could create a center medallion and use the rows as different borders, perhaps adding a few blocks or even duplicating a row or two.  For now, I'll let it sit on the bed while I ponder its fate.  I may even have to put it away until I am struck with an idea.  I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy in the meantime!

The other day finished my round on Lynn's round robin.  Mine was the fourth border, but the quilt has already grown quite large.  Marie's quilt comes to me for the final border, and I imagine it will take me the full two months to finish.  I have quite a to-do list, including blocks for two swaps.  One set of blocks is almost finished except for one small bit of machine applique on each block.  For the other swap, I cut out the 9" blocks yesterday and now am ready to choose the applique design.  Think I'm going to make two sets of "Bloom" blocks with some very colorful fabric that just came.  I'm thinking spring here!

"Paths" and another finish

This year, the Green Mountain Quilters Guild, the state guild, is having a "word" challenge.  At the fall meeting, anyone who wanted to participate drew a word from a bag, and we need to make a quilt that's 24" square with that word as its theme.  The word I drew was "paths," and I immediately thought of the traditional Drunkard's Path.  I then thought of one of my favorite quotations, If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you."  I have long thought that it came from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, but when I tried to verify that, I found that it was actually Beatle George Harrison who had paraphrased it in a song on a posthumous album.

I've been thinking a lot about what to do since that November meeting, and Saturday I started cutting Drunkard's Path pieces out of "sky" and "earth" scraps.  My aim was to make something using stash, and I succeeded except for the fabric paint I had to buy for the quotation which is another take off of those two Brits words of wisdom.  I added a little fusible applique, and am going to machine quilt it with some paths here and there.  I have until May 21 to quilt it, so it will probably go into the closet with all the rest of the to-be-quilteds til the mood strikes me.

It's a really cold but sunny day, perfect conditions for working on the last bit of applique for the local guild round robin.  We had two months to complete this border, or I would not have tackled a hand appliqued round.  Paula's bag seemed to include an entire stash of earth tones which are not my favorite.  Because the center with Pat M.'s round seemed a bit dark, I used a lighter piece for the background and the brightest fabrics I could find.  The top and bottom borders are an inch wider than the sides because Paula would like to end up with a twin-sized quilt.  I think it's going to be quite nice with four more rounds to go.