Round Robin Part Three

The next quilt for me in the rounds was this Southwestern inspired design: 

 But it had all ready had a first round put on it so I received it here:

A Delectable Mountains border had been added to it leaving the soft pastel batiks on the edge for me to add onto.  This quilt was also to be a large queen size so plenty of room, all batiks, and the owner liked scrappy quilts and wanted lots of different fabrics used throughout the quilt if possible.   
I had never done any kind of Native American design in a quilt and wanted to keep to the Southwest theme and native americans-- remember I said this experience taught me more about quilting than any other! Off I went in  search of Native American patterns in quilting, baskets, jewelry etc...combing the internet... then I remembered I had seen an episode of Simply Quilts where a lady sewed strips together, cut them apart in different places and sewed them back together displaced slightly. The end result mimicked some of the Native American designs I had seen.  Okay I think I can do that....???
No pattern to follow this time at all- just trying to duplicate what I had seen on TV a year before.
It was Christmas time and we were going to New York to spend it with my parents so this quilt came along so I could work on it there, with input and support from my mother. 
It was a lot of pieces once I started cutting the strip sets apart and sewing them back together...by this time I knew that something with tons of seams was not as easy to quilt through... I had some doubts about how it would quilt up but, they were gone completely when I laid the first side up to audition it next to the quilt. I loved it! It looked like something was spinning underneath the original circle. Cool!

I wish I could say that I had planned this but truthfully it was a delightful surprise that it looked so interesting when completed. 
I had purchased two of the fabrics ( the creamy and brown batiks) figuring if it didn't work out I hadn't wasted any of her fabrics and I would try something else! As luck would have it, I liked the resulting effect but, needed a corner to help the whole border "turn".
Back to paper piecing! I drew this little budding/spiky design that would accomplish what I needed and then I sort of reverse engineered it so I could paper piece it.  The dark green from the center medallion worked really nicely in the corners, it made my eyes happy to have it there and kind of gelled it all together for me.
Here is the completed quilt after all the other borders were added.

When we did the "big reveal" for this quilt, the owner-Jane had the best response!

She loved the quilt! And it felt so great for all of us because we had all made it!

In retrospect this was the border out of all the ones I did that I was most pleased with. I felt like I had taken a risk (- just winging it after seeing the method on television).  It was a real boost to my confidence when the other ladies in the group also liked it and were inspired by it as well. My addition was followed by a beautiful French Braid border, some pineapple stars and lastly a reverse of the delectable mountains from border one in a larger scale to frame the whole thing.