I went in looking for a jelly roll. I had watched a Missouri Star Quilt Co. tutorial on YouTube the night before, and thought that it might be my best chance of getting a quilt top finished! :) This is the tutorial I watched: Jelly Roll Race!
I didn't have a recipient in mind for this quilt, because I wasn't quite sure what I was going to find at the store. When I found the new Cotton + Steel lines, I targeted a quilt for a little girl who is due at the beginning of March.
The video says that the quilt top will come together in 45 minutes to an hour. This was not so true for me, but I think that I am on the slow side. In total, it took me 2 hours to put this quilt top together, 3 separate times while Maggie slept . I am pretty happy with that, and I feel like I accomplished something.
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| Sewing strips together |
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| Strippy goodness |
A quick run down of how to jelly roll race:
1. Unroll the jelly roll and sew the strips to each other consecutively so it forms one big strip, with right sides together. (The tutorial shows a diagonal join, but I'm not so good at those, so I joined them with a straight seam.)
2. When the long strip is done, fold it on itself so the ends are together and sew down the long side. When you get to the end, cut the loop open and you have a 2 row strip that is half the size of the original strip.
3. Keep folding the strip on itself until you get to 32 rows (5 times).
There, you are done! Easy peasy, grilled cheesy.
Here is what mine looked like:
I didn't like the big chunk of aqua that was plunked in the middle. So, I unstitched between the middle of the aqua, and sewed the two pieces back together with the aqua separated. This is what it looks like now:
A little better, but to be honest, I'm not loving it. I'm not sure what I am going to put on the back, but I'm thinking either pink or aqua minky. Off to the fabric store to see what they have.
More to come,
P.S. I've linked up with Sew Fresh Quilt for Let's Bee Social...first link up ever!!
I had a hard time letting go of the control with my first jelly roll race. All my purples ended up on the bottom half. It does look better with the Aqua chunk separated. Once I quilted it, I liked it a lot better. Minky on the back of yours will be perfect. And here's a little secret: I iron my strips to the side after each seam. Then I fold it in half to see which side I want to sew my seam on. That helps to break up some of the chunks. I guess I couldn't let go completely.
ReplyDeleteI was okay with following the "rules". The quilt shop owner in my town really recommended it. Part of the problem, I think, is that some of the strips were two of the same fabrics right after one another. Next time, I will take a little control and move duplicate strips to the end of the roll.
DeleteYour secret is awesome! In fact, that is what I did for the first couple of strip sews. But then I stopped. Maybe I should have continued and that aqua mess wouldn't have happened.
Thanks for dropping by!