Saturday, August 2, 2014

Jelly Roll Race

My Jelly Roll Race quilt top all ready to layer, pin, and quilt!!!
At our last guild meeting we did a jelly roll race after our general meeting. There were only six of us sewing, four guild members and two guests from Hillsboro and Beaverton Oregon. I wish more members had been able to participate because we had a lot of fun, but it is hard to get people in during the summer with so many activities going on!!

So this is how we  did it. I am borrowing a photo from the internet for one of the explanations as I didn't photograph my entire process!!!

Jelly Roll Race

1)  You need one jelly roll. A jelly roll usually is a roll of 2 1/2" strips with around 40-44 strips in it. Here's a really cute one!!!

I did not buy a jelly roll because I have TONS of watercolor, 2" fabric strips, and need to use them up!! I decided to put a white strip of fabric inbetween each watercolor fabric and used 44 strips.

2)  Next, sew your strips together, end to end, either on the straight of grain, or on the bias=you would need to cut your strips on a 45 degree angle, then sew together. You will end up with an extremely long strip of fabric when done, really, really, really long!!!

Some quilters add a square inbetween each strip, like a complimentary color, black, or white.

3)  Press your seams open or to the side.

4)  Accordion fold the entire strip. This will make finding both ends to begin sewing with easier and will help prevent the entire strip twisting about.

5)  On one end, cut half or 18" off the end and discard to your scrap fabric container. This will offset the strips when you start sewing.

6)  Now, find both ends of the large strip and with right sides together, sew your first seam, from one end to the other. This will take quite a while as it is a very long strip. When you get to the end you will have a fold, cut the fold off and press your strip either open or to one side.


7) Accordion fold your strip again.

8) Find the beginning and the end, right sides together, and sew your next seam. Trim off the fold at the end.

9)  Repeat this 3 more times. You will do a total of 5 sets of seams to get to your finished quilt top. I pressed the first seam open, then pressed my seams when I was done with all the sewing, which worked really well!!

One more seam to go and her quilt top will be done
And done!! How beautiful!!!

More photos of the group
This was one, by Megan,  of two already done for us to see and learn from
This is the other one that was on display for us made by Marjorie
Lovely colors
Shirley's quilt top, I love the colors and the way they turned out!!!
Beautiful colors on this one, Alene sewed this with Megan's jelly roll.
Barb's Christmas quilt. I love the white squares on this one, reminds me of snow, perfect for a Christmas quilt!!
It was a fun day and I am really happy with the way mine came out!! Now to get it quilted. I am thinking of doing matchstick quilting, really intense, close quilting,  but I think it will work well with this quilt. We will see and I will let you know!!!

Take Care, Happy Quilting, and keep those rotary cutters sharp!!! Martha

4 comments:

  1. the jell roll quilts look great, am off to quilt festival next weekend and jelly rolls are on my list of wants, will have a go at one of these or maybe 2 or 3 goes!

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  2. LoVe your Jelly Roll quilt with white strips between! I made one with squares between each strip and liked it , but will do one like yours too.

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  3. How neat. I haven't seen those before. I like yours with the white strips breaking up the colors. Were they part of the jelly roll, or did you add those?

    Do you always take your sewing machine to your guild meetings? I wish our guild did that as I think it would help members get to know each other. Ours has a refreshment time followed by a speaker and then everyone just goes home. It's really hard to get to know them.

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  4. Martha, Of course I've seen a lot of jelly roll race quilts on the QB, but never saw one explained. Thank you for this lesson! They look like a load of fun to make! So do you all really do it as a race? Yours and the other lady's quilts all turned out great!

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