Saturday, November 26, 2011

The Last Round

November 1st was the send-off date for completing the last round of the fabulous Once 'Round the Country round robin. Whoops! I didn't manage to make that date, but Zonnah was wonderfully understanding and let me know it was okay if I was a little late. Nearly a month later (what happened to November???), I finally finished. Yay!

This is how it looked once Kris finished her round:

Kris's round on Zonnah's quilt, photo courtesy of Kris
I spent a lot of time being stuck thinking about options. In my ideal world, I would have done some kind of awesome applique something. But I couldn't think of anything that really fit with what came before and there really wasn't enough fabric to create a cohesive background for the applique. So I started looking about the interwebs for inspiration and fell in love with the idea of a sort of "braided" border. I felt like it would sort of echo the style of the border around the center star without being the same.

Zonnah's quilt design planning
I got out my graph paper and got to work. My husband helped me with some of the math (there was a lot of Pythagorean theorem going on in this one) and I eventually got brave enough to start cutting fabric and sewing. I actually created the four sides first and then figured out the corner blocks (because, despite all of my math, I didn't want to commit to a size until I knew exactly how wide the borders would end up being). I went with Dresden plates because I liked the idea of a little bit of curve on the outside, and I also thought they would echo the center star points as well as the spiky flowers in Anne's border. And I had always wanted to do Dresden plates (I just love the look of them, and now I definitely want to do a whole quilt of them!).

The finished border:

Zonnah's quilt top complete with Little Bear
Oops! Someone sneaked in on that shot. Let's try again...

Zonnah's top complete!
Once 'Round the Country has been so much fun! I've gotten to really work my creative muscles, try some techniques that I otherwise may not have (like a braided border and Dresden plates), and shared in the creation of some amazing quilts with an awesome group of ladies. It has been such a great experience!

10 comments:

  1. That is a really beautiful quilt Robyn, love the colours, and the border you worked out really sets the whole thing off, someone is going to be very happy with that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, oh, wow! Zonnah is going to love this. Your border was the perfect finishing touch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So, so amazing Robin! Your son standing on the quilt top is, first adorable, and, second, really good for scale. He was just helping Mama with the photo shoot. ;]

    ReplyDelete
  4. beautiful! I love the bight colours!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your braided border really makes that quilt pop! Such a great job. The quilt is amazing and your little one is too cute!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What a perfect finish! Nice job!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I Love what you did. I think when I put the binding on I am going to round the corners to go with the Dresden plates.

    ReplyDelete