Round Robin: how it works

Hi everybody!
While we’re waiting to “close” the group, or the groups, the next week, and now that the “hurricane” of the Festa del Ricamo has gone through, I’d like to quickly explain what’s a Round Robin, to all our friends who don’t know it yet and to those who don’t know how it works.
A RR is mainly a game: a group of cross stitchers gathering, each one accepting to stitch on another one’s cloth, to be delighted with the opportunity of meeting new cross stitch lovers, in order to share “stitching moments” together and then get a unique thing stitched by the whole group.
Here are the practical passages of the work

You usually form a group (it’s generally composed by 4 to 6 stitchers, but it can be larger): let’s consider our group is composed by Anna, Betty, Chiara and Dany

You plan the time of rotation (generally 35-40 days): this is the time each stitcher will have to stitch the pattern

You decide the maximum size of each finished work (they are usually not too big, about 60x60 cross stitches or 80x80 cross stitches, though every group can decide as it prefers)

Each stitcher taking part to the RR chooses a subject that will be the one of her cloth, she then prepares her cloth so that it can contain the embroideries of the other participants, too, and carries out the first stitching. So, taking our example, we can say that Anna has chosen “Flowers” as her subject, so she will prepare a cloth to contain 4 60x60-cross-stitches embroideries and she will stitch her flower in the first space. The other participants will do exactly the same.

Once the first work has been stitched (of course, in the rotation time decided), the stitcher will send her cloth to the stitcher following her in the list (Anna will send it to Betty, Betty to Chiara, Chiara to Dany and Dany to Anna).

At this point, each stitcher will get a cloth to stitch the subject chosen by its owner on: so, Betty, who’ll have received the cloth from Anna with the subject “flowers” will stitch her flower on Anna’s cloth and so on.

The round will go on, until all embroideries are finished.

At the end, each stitcher will have her cloth come back with all the embroideries from the other participants on.

In short, this is how a RR works. Then, there are a few customs and important things to take into account and requiring a certain dedication for the round robin to work and end up properly: i.e. that each cloth comes back to her owner complete with all the embroideries… And, I know it doesn’t sound nice to tell, but this doesn’t always happen.

The key-points:

always try to meet the deadlines: if somebody’s late, there’ll be hitches and complications in the cloths rotation;

ALWAYS send the stitched cloths with certified/recorded delivery mail: so, stitchers can always track them and know where their cross stitches are;

communicate, communicate, communicate! After all, the RR spirit is just this one: being in touch with other stitchers. Therefore, communication – either through email, or through the blog – is crucial for the RR itself;

try to stitch doing your best: you don’t need to be a skilled stitcher, because what’s important is not to stitch just to get rid of the cloth you receive;

DO NOT DISAPPEAR!!! If you have any difficulty or problem, if you feel like not to complete your part or if you’ve simply got fed up with it… Well, it’s better – much better – to let it know to the group and send the cloth back to its owner. Disappearing isn’t definitely fair, for this “adventure” is started as a game to enjoy and nobody knows what can happen to us in the months that have still to come, so “defections” and problems can be perfectly understood… Provided that it’s always important to communicate them to and talk about them with the group: because this will always get the RR concluded well and all stitchers participating to it happy.

The RR is a game, but it’s also an engagement (often a long-run one) and to live it properly and happily, you must be fully aware of it. If you think you cannot cope with this engagement, please, simply, do not get engaged in it! An alternative, could be choosing small groups (not more than 4 people), so that execution times will be short.

I’ve personally had different experiences, both with small and with large groups (even with 16 people), and in both cases my experience was wonderful and really enjoyable) To be honest, in the group with 16 people, not all stitchers finished their work, but the cloths have all come back to their owners, with a lot of fantastic cross stitches on and they were used anyhow (my cloth was a panel of small samplers). The only time when things went really bad, was with a group of 4 stitchers only.

Any RR is usually completed with the publication of some photos of the embroideries done, some chats among the participants, to share their thoughts and impressions through emails, and so on… Just to stay in touch! Otherwise, the whole thing wouldn’t be different from some stitching on commission: though nobody’s paying you in the RR case :) In our specific case, we’re going to use the space in the website myembroidery.com (you can now see it fully in English, because it was used for “Stitchers for Children”, but on our RR occasion, we’re obviously speaking Italian), where all stitchers can keep a sort of blog with her works, publish her photos and so on.

Right! I’d say “that’s all folks”. We’re going to get in touch with you next week, so that we “count us” and make a decision on what to do exactly: either a single group or two groups, our subjects, cloths and so on. In the meantime, should you have any doubt or question, just ask here in the “comments” part.
See you soon :)