Originally Posted by
Chester the bunny
I've done this before.
Here is what I learned;
The quality of some of the fabric (and I'm not that picky) was... umm ....... not so great.
Everyone's 1/4" seam allowance was different so I ended up adding a 1" border on all of the blocks to square them off.
One of the ladies chose a detailed pineapple block to do in black and white and provided the paper pieced template only to realize that half of the blocks had been trimmed and the last seam allowance was now gone.
So my advice is to choose a pattern/theme that is forgiving and do it for fun, to have a quilt that your friends have worked on.
Everyone will be using their own fabric, so that stops the problem of "no so great fabric" & also the quilt will be in the colors of her choice for her shoebox. The only thing friends will work on are the actual blocks. The box owner then figures out how they will be put together. I agree, everyone's 1/4" seam allowance may be different...I've added borders to swaps, myself...still came out with a nice quilt. And actually it turned out larger & with a whole different look...nice surprise!