Round robins are very much like the sports kind except you end up with what you started with.
You start with your own piece of fabric which you divide into the number of members in the robin (usually 6, 9 or 12). You then stitch your "square" which sets the theme for your piece. You then send it off to the next person on the mailing list, the person before you does the same thing and so on. It takes from between 12-24 months to complete a robin depending on the number of members. We allow 8 weeks to stitch each piece with a little extra time over Christmas. You can be as free or as strict as you like with instructions for the robin. You can send patterns or leave it to the member to find an appropriate pattern that matches your theme. The choice is yours.
We have members from the United Kingdom, mostly England, New Zealand, America and of course, Australia.
I have been involved in the robins for about 5 years. I took over the organization of them from the lady who started them a bit before that. I have done 3 completed robins and am on my 4th now, it's due to finish in the next couple of months.
I also produce a semi-regular newsletter which keeps everyone up to date with what's happening in the robins and give hints, tips etc.
To help you see exactly what a robin is I have included some photographs with this little explanation, like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
If you're interest in joining then please contact me:-
(A) by e-mail at ddavis@tpgi.com.au;
(B) by snail mail at PO Box 415, Nambour
Qld 4560, Australia; or
(C) by phone on (07) 5485 0035.
There is no fee as such for joining. All we ask is that you provide us with a booklet of 10 of your local mail stamps to help with the posting out of newsletters and letters involved in setting up the robin.
Having said all that, I do have a couple of warnings for you:-
1. Remember cross stitch is addictive!!
2. While every care is taken we can't guarantee the people who join the robins and unfortunately we have had a few bad experiences with people not doing the right thing and either hanging onto the robins, moving without letting people know and basically disappearing with the robins and just not stitching on them. Unfortunately it's something I can't control. All I can do is take all members on good faith.
3. Sometimes mail goes missing while zipping around the world. Unfortunately there's not much I can do to control this either. I must say though that the few that have gone AWOL while I've been involved have eventually turned up after a bit of a wait.
Hope to hear from you - we always like to meet new Cross Stitching people!
Debbie Davis
If you want to read the March 2000 Newsletter, you can click on the
links below
(large files 100-300K, downloading may take awhile):
Click here for Page 1 (233 K)
Click here for Page 2 (210 K)
Click here for Page 3 (163 K)
Click here for Page 4 (109K)
