The Trouble with Robins and Math

My guild hosts a Round Robin.

And it's awesome.  It's a fun thing and it's something that I firmly believe that every semi-serious quilter needs to do at least once during her quilting tenure.  It's challenging on several levels.  First, the design may not be one of your favorites.  But it's the other quilter's idea, not yours and you've got to contribute in some positive way to that design.  Second, you may not like the colors.  But it's not your quilt, and your preference doesn't matter.  Somehow you have to come up with a complementing design and work with what you're given.  The last three Round Robins I worked on had nary a scrap of purple, but hey, I made it work.  Third, and most challenging to a lot of folks, is that there is no pattern for a Round Robin, whether that Robin is a Row-by-Row or a Border Round Robin.  You have to study the overall design of the quilt and come up with a design idea that works with the theme of the quilt and then make sure it fits.

If the quilter has an Electronic Quilt program and knows how to work with it, a lot of the third challenge is dealt with.  You can put in the perimeters, search the border library, find it, and print out the rotary cutting, templates, or foundation piecing directions in a point-and-click minute. However, not all quilters have the software, so you have to learn to do the math.  I also firmly believe that even if you have an EQ program, you need to learn to do the math.

And here's where a good many quilters freeze up.  Either they aren't comfortable with the math or they're not sure about exactly how to do the math.  Let's look at the Round Robin I received for our June Guild Meeting:

This is my friend, Shelli's, quilt.  She did the medallion in the center and since our guild's is a Border Round Robin, each person put on a border.  Linda, the  Chief-Robin in charge of the Round Robin program, has rules for each border added on.  Each border has to be a specified width and each border must have certain blocks.  By the time I got Shelli's quilt, I had the last border, which had to be 7 1/2-inches wide and had to incorporate triangles and rectangles.

One of the rules that I have for myself, is that I have to begin working on the Robin the same week I get it -- that way I don't wait until the last minute and half-heartedly throw something together.  The owner deserves my best and I like to plan.  Seven-and-a-half inches is a wide border, so the first thing I did was try to divide it into portions that would please the eye and not overwhelm the fabrics.  So I decided to sew on 2-inch floaters and then the main portion of the borders would be 5 1/2-inches.  Shelli had put a lot of fabric in her box, but then again, I was the last Robin member who got her box.  I was down to scraps.  So my floaters became opposing colors and I had to piece them. 

The first Robin member who got Shelli's quilt used snowballs and squares to surround the center medallion.  Since the snowball block uses triangles, I decided to echo that again in off-set corners and to add rectangles. 

Now the fun part sets in.  I had to do the maths.

Math doesn't bother me too much.  I taught chemistry and physics to high school students at one point in my life.  Formulas and decimals don't fluster me too much. 

Converting them into fractions -- which is what quilters deal with -- does.  So let me introduce you to my little friend...

It's a Quilters FabriCalc.  It can figure wonderful things like how many half-square triangles you need for a quilt, how long your drop needs to be, how big your quilt needs to be for an odd-sized mattress.  It's about the neatest quilting tool I have.  But the thing I like the most....

See that little forward slash button?  That converts any number into a fraction.

Joy and rapture.

Now before you go Googling to see where you can purchase one of these little jewels, let me add something here.  If you have a Smart Phone, there is an app for this.  And it's far less expensive than what I paid for my FabriCalc in the days before Smart Phones.

Okay...so here we go with addition and division folks.  The quilt, when it came into my possession, measured 37 1/2" x  37 1/2" That. Was. Horrible.  See, 37 is a prime number -- a number divisible only by itself and the number one.  I hate primes in quilting because then you get funky numbers like 23 1/32 or 12 1/16.  Seriously?  My science background pushes me to be very precise and here's where I get into trouble -- you can't get real precise with 32nds and 16ths in quilting because they're not marked on the rulers or the cutting mats.  So you have to be comfortable rounding up.

I went ahead and made my 2-inch floaters, cutting them at 2 1/2 inches to allow for 1/4-inch seam allowances.  I added them and this brought the quilt to 41-inches square.  Again with the primes...oy-vey.

So I decided on making three 5 1/2-inch square snowball blocks, separating them by 5 1/2-inch blocks of fabric on the right and left sides.  I would then need to fill the rest of the 17-inch space with rectangles.  This is where I began to play with numbers as to what would look nice.  I finally decided that four 4 1/4 x 5-inch rectangles would work nicely.  This was a subjective decision.  I could have gone smaller or bigger, but I thought these measurements would like the best against a 5 1/2-inch square or snowball. 

Now, please remember this as you may be working with the maths on your quilt.  When you're figuring out what to do, do not figure the seam allowances until last. So the 4 1/4 x 5-inch rectangle is the finished measurements.  I had to add a half-inch to each measurement to allow for seam allowances before I cut them out.  So I had to cut out four 4 3/4 x 5 1/2-inch rectangles (4 1/4 + 1/2 = 4 3/4 and 5 + 1/2 = 5 1/2). 

Before I sewed the rectangles on to the snowball units, I sewed varying widths of rectangles onto them from the scraps in Shelli's box.  So the left and right sides ended up looking like this....

Now to work with the top and bottom borders.  Measuring the quilt one more time (and remember, you always measure across the middle  of your quilt to be the most accurate), I found out that it was now 51-inches across.

I swear I couldn't pay to escape prime numbers on this quilt.  Shelli better be glad I love her....

This time I did a six-unit fabric and snowball block, keeping with the 5 1/2-inch squares because they were going to join up in the opposing corner.  This unit finished at 26 3/8-inches, which left me an empty design space of 24 5/8-inches.  I needed to keep the rectangles in this area as close to the 4 1/4 x 5-inch rectangles as I could so that everything blended well together.  However the 4 1/4 x 5-inch rectangles would not work.  So instead of four rectangles, I decided to use six.  24 5/8 divided by 6 equals 4 1/8.  Add a half an inch for seam allowances and you come up with a 4 5/8 x 5 1/2-inch rectangle.  So I cut six of these, added the scrappy rectangles randomly and sewed them on the top and bottom.

Since the rectangles' measurements are a little different, this does mean that you have to learn to live with this:

The corners do not exactly meet in the opposing corner settings.  They're off slightly a little over 1/4-inch.  However, the background fabric (white) is the same in all the blocks, so unless you're looking right at it, it's not that noticeable.  Plus Shelly is fabulous on her long-arm and I'm sure she would be the first to tell you "That will quilt right out..."

So there is a moral or two to the blog this week.

1.  At some point, try a Round Robin.  Even if it's just a few of your quilting friends that do it informally, give it shot.  It will really help you grow as a quilter.

2.  Be considerate of your Round Robin members.  Don't wait until the last minute to work on their quilt.

3.  Be mindful of any Round Robin Rules.

4. Don't be afraid of the math.
As I always told my chemistry and physics students, numbers are your friends.  They don't lie and they don't bite. At least not hard.  Words have far more bite.

Love and Stitches my Robins,

Sherri