Wanna play?

I have had an idea, primarily to entertain my regular students while we are away from class, but I thought it may appeal to more people. Several years ago I developed something I described as a solo round robin. It seemed like the whole world was doing round robin quilts but I knew a lot of people it woldn’t work for. I wanted to find a way they could play along. The system gives you a size instruction and a technique or design instuction and you interpret it as you like. All technicalities count. For example you might get, add 3 inches to each side of the quilt using triangles. Some of my students gave it a test run and had a lot of fun but I haven’t gone further with it yet. Now seemed a great time to bring it out. A project everyone can play with at home alone and yet be part of a group.

The tentative plan is that each Monday I post the new instructions here. Anyone can start playing at any time, as it really doesn’t matter when you dip in. Everyone will need to make a starting block, I would reccomend this should be 9 inches or bigger. No it doesn’t need to be square, though a shape with straight sides will make it easier. A rectangle is just as good as a square, maybe a hexagon? This really is a game where the only limit is your imagination. Maybe you have an orphan block you could start from, this would be a time to put it to work. If you need to take two weeks on one set of instructions that won’t be an issue just dip back in on a Monday for a new set.

I am thinking that people can email me pictures of their quilts if they would like to share and I will include them in a blog post weekly. For my students they can show off the finished quilts when classes restart. For those who have made the sampler quilt in my book, that technique would work for making this a quilt as you go project. Of course you can just make the top then quilt at the end.

I thought the comments sections would give a space for people to ask questions and share thoughts. These instructions will be really open ended so there is a lot of scope to come up with some very differnt ideas. It also gives a chance to try new techniques in small quantities. Much better than getting stuck doing a whole quilt in a technique you find you don’t like.

At the end of the process you will have a quilt somewhat related to medalion quilts. It is unlikely to by symmeterical and may be very modern or very traditional depending on your choices. It will work well for scraps.

Now the million dollar question, does anyone want to play?