It's hard to believe but, Cindy, Julie, Sandra and I have entered the last rounds of our Mini Round Robin. I have mixed feelings about this day. On one hand I'm super sad. It has been exciting to see what each of these other artists have created, poof! out of thin air. (I have to say I'm a humbled to be included in this group of amazing quilters). On the other hand, I'm kind of glad it's over, because, each round the bar was set higher and higher and with it the anxiety level of creating also rose. At least for me. Not to sound cocky, but as I was finishing up Cindy's block, I kind of had what I was going to do for Julie's block in the back of my mind and didn't feel panicked at all. Then on the first day of August we did our big reveals for the July round. Photo courtesy of mmm!quilts I had to laugh like a mad woman (on the verge of tears) when I saw a wonky width piano key border...almost the same thing I was thinking. (Sandra and I laugh and say we share a brain cell, I'm beginning to think it's true) I loved everything she did in her round. She started off by making the block "spin" by adding a border of white Moda Grunge then cutting it to off set the block. Then she framed the block with the multi colored and width piano key border. Looks like it's perfect and finished to me! Oh, wait, I still have to add to it...this is where the panic started. So it was back to the drawing board. Julie mentioned a wonderful book by Joen Wolfrom called The Visual Dance in her last round robin post. I decided to take her advice and purchased a copy of the book. I've only read the small section on round robins as of right now but it has been incredibly helpful even with this last round. According to Joen, the duty of the last round is to try to tie everything together. So before I started designing or picking out fabric, I spent some time truly thinking about what has made the block up to this point. I loved how both Cindy and Sandra added the "spinning" effect with the whitish fabric in their rounds. It has given the block nice movement. And the over all theme of the block was a scrapiness of bright colors with a feeling of improve piecing. Julie started us off with an improv log cabin and Sandra continued the improv with her wonky width piano keys. Now to decide how to tie these elements together. So what where my thoughts? First, to spin the block again using white grunge and again creating some sort of border. But let's remember technically we had to stay within the rule of only adding 3" to each side. Three inches sounds like a lot, until you are actually working with it. When I was working on Cindy's block in EQ7, I ran across a section of Crazy paper pieced blocks. I thought these blocks had great potential for a border for this mini. They still had an improv log cabin feel, but with angles instead of vertical and horizontal lines. So feeling pretty confident about my choices I moved forward and started off by adding a 3.5" border of the white to the block and played with spinning the block. So to spin or not spin was the question? I'll be honest, trying to figure out the measurements was starting to hurt my head. So I regrouped. What if I just did a small plain border of the white? This sounded promicing as well, but I felt I needed to justify it and prove to myself I wan't just taking the easy way out. Since it was the last round, just doing a simple border of the white would help to let the eye know things where starting to level out. I could still have movement with my improv block border. This was sounding better. And so this, is where Tish decides to go rogue and break the 3" to each side rule. We all knew I was going to do this at some point and quite frankly I'm impressed I waited until the last round. I trimmed the border to 1.75" which would bring the block to 21.5" and allow me to paper piece my blocks at 3.5" for a nice even number. I would need a total of 32 blocks. This sounded easy...until I actually started on it. I think I used a total of 7-8 different Crazy blocks found in EQ7 to create my border. I sorted through my stash (and ended up purchasing a few more) for fabrics that would work with the block. One thing I noticed is there was not much blue fabric (actually none) in the block so far. When I did my fabric pull I made sure I steered clear of this color. I think introducing a new color at this point would have stuck out a bit. With 32 blocks each made up of 7 to 11 pieces of fabric, I needed variety to pull off the look I was going for. So I sorted my fabric into piles and tried to grab randomly as I pieced the blocks. So a day of on and off sewing found me with only half of the blocks I needed. I completely underestimated how long piecing these tiny blocks would take. The next evening I spent cutting out fabrics for the other 18 blocks. Then the next evening, I sewed the rest together. Knowing that the clock was ticking down on time, I started chain piecing and not paying attention to what I was doing. It only took two sessions of picking out these tiny 1.0 stitches to slow my butt down and make sure fabrics where not folded over. That's a mistake you do not want to repeat. Yikes! Several hours later, I've never been so happy to see a pile of blocks in my life!! The next step was to sew the blocks into rows. They contained so many bias edges, for stability, I decided to leave the paper on the blocks until the rows were attached to the block itself. As soon as a row was sewed together it was time to say a prayer and see if indeed it was the correct length. And it was!!! After a crazy happy dance with a dog it was time to attach the rows to the block and pick all of the paper off. And I could not be happier with the the result of my round. It turned out just as I imagined. I can't wait to hear what Julie thinks of my round. I have much respect for her as a designer and I've always enjoyed reading about her design process. I tried very hard to channel my "inner Julie" when working with this block. Improv is not something that comes easily to me (heck I still used a paper pieced block), but I wanted to do her block justice and try to make everything come together in this round. I don't feel bad in saying, I think I got it right. The lesson: don't be afraid to challenge yourself, you just might be surprised at what you can do. If you get a chance to participate in a project of this type, go for it! Don't be afraid to trust your instincts and try new things. And don't be afraid to allow yourself to feel good about the work you've done. Please take a moment to check out my fellow bloggers and see how they have wrapped up the minis for their rounds. Julie @Pink Doxies--Cindy's block Cindy @Stitchin at Home--Sandra's block Sandra @mmmquilts---My block Today I'm linking up with Finish It Up Friday, Midweek Makers, TGIFF, Let's Bee Social, Can I Get A Whoop! Whoop!