On a Jelly Roll Roll

I am so intrigued by the idea of making a quilt in a day, I just had to try the jelly roll idea for a larger size quilt. I wanted to see if I could make one that would fit my queen size bed.

This is unironed, unquilted, totally unfinished, but hot off the sewing machine at 10:30 tonight!

So here's what I did. I had a 40 piece jelly roll with 7 different batiks. The colors are pinks and blues. I added some more pink, blue and purple strips from some left-over yardage because I had to make more strips. I wanted to make the quilt wider than the quilts I had made earlier in the week, which averaged between 57-61 inches wide when they were finished, using 40-45 jelly roll strips. I figured out that if a 1600" strip would sew down to a 60 x 70 inch quilt top, by adding some more strips, it would sew down to a wider top. Then I could add rows to the bottom of it to make it a longer length. Basically, this took fabric that would probably be what you would find in 2 jelly rolls. So, I sewed 55 strips together, and my top came out close to 70" wide. I then took some of the other jelly roll strips left over, and sewed them one strip at a time to make the quilt longer. As you can see, it covers the queen bed quite adequately, I will add a 5-6" border around the edges, and it will be the right size for an 80" x 80" Queen size quilt. I managed to do this much, including cutting about 30 strips in an evening. I'm pretty excited about how neat these jelly roll quilts turn out, it looks different for every one you do. I don't know what border I'll use yet, I'll have to see what I have in my stash, or (darn the luck) make another trip to the fabric store. I think I will enjoy this quilt, since it is so colorful, it may be my April quilt of the month!

I will be costuming two shows in April, so I'm not sure how much quilting I'll get done then. But I have many plans for more quilts, and some UFOs that need to be made into a sandwich, quilted and bound. I'll work on them every chance I get, because I am addicted to this hobby! Hope I keep up my enthusiasm until the stash is reduced!