{"id":15942,"date":"2015-03-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/?p=15942"},"modified":"2015-06-03T11:19:55","modified_gmt":"2015-06-03T16:19:55","slug":"jelly-roll-quilt-pattern-serged-quilt-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/jelly-roll-quilt-pattern-serged-quilt-top\/","title":{"rendered":"Jelly roll quilt pattern – my serged quilt top"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How

Time to work on a new quilt top. \u00a0I had used the Moda Avant Garden<\/a> jelly roll as serger practice, learning the ropes and getting the hours in on my new serger<\/a>. \u00a0Some strips I had sewn without cutting off, some with just a small amount cut and others with a larger cut.<\/p>\n

\"91+N1NeAcbL._SL1500_\"

You can see the original article<\/a> here about how I sewed all the strips together and what it looked like before cutting.<\/p>\n

\"Not

This resulted in a random collection of strips of different widths, just sewn straight as they came off the roll. \u00a0I loved the way it looked on the back – very neat and tidy, all the edges beautifully finished. \u00a0It was great practice for logging some starter hours on the serger.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

So now I didn't want to put all that good fabric to waste and needed to make something from my serger practice piece. \u00a0Obviously with all that going on, clothing was out of the question, but as much as I try to stay away, I still do feel occasionally drawn to quilts and here seemed the perfect opportunity to use up that big piece and ‘design' a quilt of my very own.<\/p>\n

I own a 12.5 inch square quilting ruler<\/a>, so I used that with my rotary cutter<\/a> and keeping the jelly roll lines on the diagonal of my ruler, I chopped up that one big piece into 12 large squares.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

It was a pretty efficient way to use the piece. \u00a0I was able to cut 12 full size squares because they all butted up against each other.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

Oliver helped out of course. \u00a0For some reason he shows no interest if I sew clothes or bags, but quilts – he goes crazy for and it takes me forever to get anything finished. \u00a0Of course as soon as Oliver falls asleep on anything, work stops for the day until he wakes up again. \u00a0Thankfully he was in playful mood today and I could distract him with some scraps to ‘hunt and kill'.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

None of the other pieces went to waste either. \u00a0All of the triangles from the edges were gathered up and sewn together, then trimmed to size. \u00a0I was able to make another three 12.5 inch squares from these edge triangles. \u00a0Not decided what to do with these so far. \u00a0I certainly won't let them do to waste, but they don't match the other squares so I can't really use them in the quilt. \u00a0Perhaps I could simply use them to make some small pillow covers that match – sort of.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

\"OLYMPUS

So now I have all of my squares, time to make them into a quilt top. \u00a0Because the strips are a random width, I tried simply placing them side by side, but the individual strips didn't exactly line up and it looked messy. \u00a0So I decided on some sashing – rows of solid color between the blocks.<\/p>\n

I asked advice on the Facebook page and was inundated with so much great advice and suggestions from all the keen and experienced quilters out there. It seemed pretty evenly split between people preferring white, cream or black. \u00a0White gave a nice sharp contrast, cream perhaps better reflected the colors in the block fabrics and black gave a really intense pop to the colors. Ahhh, what to do?<\/p>\n

\"PicMonkey

In the end, I decided that I really liked the black, but went with the suggestion from several that the sashing was too wide, too dominant. \u00a0So I made the sashing strips narrower, took them from 2.5 inches wide down to 1.5 inches wide. \u00a0After the 1\/4 inch seam allowance that made a 1 inch sashing between the blocks.<\/p>\n

It was a quick and easy job to trim up the sashing with my ruler into the right width and then cut it to 12.5 inch lengths for between the blocks.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

I used my 1\/4 inch quilting foot for the sashing instead of the serger because it was important that these seams were accurate and serging could have caused a slip up – it goes so fast!. \u00a0When all the blocks were done on one direction, I used the same 1.5 inch black strip along the other direction too to join those rows together until I had a complete grid.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

Once the blocks were broken up, I could get a better feel for the border. \u00a0I only wish I had more choice in the local store for quilting cottons. It would have been stunning with a turquoise or red I think, for the sashing and border, but well, I have to work with what I can get. \u00a0I still love it!<\/p>\n

I used the black jelly roll again at the full 2.5 inch width for the border. \u00a0It's quite a small quilt really, and if I had some yardage that matched the jelly roll I could have made a nice wide border too, but well, I never planned this from the beginning, it was always just serger practice when it started out.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS

It measures about 55.5 inches by 42.5 inches. \u00a0Big enough to keep my side of the bed that bit warmer than hubby's side, but no doubt it will become Oliver's quilt because I don't suppose I'll be able to get him off it. \u00a0Not that we have much call for keeping warm with quilts here in Cayman so perhaps I'll list it in my Etsy shop for sale? \u00a0What do you think would be a reasonable price for it once finished?<\/p>\n

How do you work out the selling price of your quilts? \u00a0Or do you all just sew them and keep them?<\/p>\n

The Quilting<\/h2>\n

Having struggled to get two reasonably small quilts (here <\/a>and here<\/a>) through my regular sewing machine, in the heat and with a cat asleep on it most of the time, I've decided that although I enjoy making the quilt top, I don't enjoy so much the actual layering and quilting of the pieces.<\/p>\n

Plus, I have met a lovely lady who comes here to Cayman a couple of times a year and scuba dives with my husband, and she has her own computerized long-arm quilting business, at Granny Sassy Designs<\/a>. \u00a0Well hello! \u00a0I've seen examples of her quilting and I'm blown away so I've decided to send off this quilt to her in the mail and she'll work her magic and bring it in her case when she visits next in June. \u00a0Cheating I know, but my sewing time is short so I'm happy to do this and save my time for other projects I'll enjoy more – plus she'll do a much better job than I would!<\/p>\n

This is Lucy – hard at work.<\/p>\n

\"lucy

I'll report back then on what it looks like – gorgeous I'm sure!<\/p>\n

How to make your own simple jelly roll quilt<\/h2>\n

So if you want to have a go at making your own jelly roll quilt pattern, like mine, here are the steps.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Join all your jelly roll strips together, all 40 of them, to make one large piece of striped fabric. \u00a0Press all the seams in one direction. \u00a0Serging isn't necessary, use a 1\/4 inch quilting foot<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. Use a 12.5 inch quilting ruler to cut out 12 large squares. \u00a0I cut mine on the diagonal. \u00a0Or cut your squares whatever size you like. Smaller would look cool too.<\/li>\n
  3. Layout your blocks out on the floor or if you are lucky use a quilting wall, and decide how to lay them out to give what you think is a pleasing balance of color. \u00a0There is no right or wrong way, we are all different \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n
  4. Decide on the width and color of your sashing. \u00a0I used a black jelly roll cut down to 1.5 inches wide. You can also just cut strips from fabric yardage.<\/li>\n
  5. Add 12.5 inch long strips between your rows of blocks until you have 4 rows of 3 blocks.<\/li>\n
  6. Join your rows together with the sashing in between, until you have a big piece 4 blocks by 3 blocks.<\/li>\n
  7. Decide on the width of your outer border. \u00a0I used a black jelly roll again and left the strips at full width. \u00a0This quilt would look great with another border added again around the outside. \u00a0Consider buying some yardage to match your original jelly roll strips.<\/li>\n
  8. Layer, quilt and bind your quilt or send it out to a professional for quilting.<\/li>\n
  9. Enjoy your quilt for years to come.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Time to work on a new quilt top. \u00a0I had used the Moda Avant Garden jelly roll as serger practice, learning the ropes and getting the hours in on my new serger. \u00a0Some strips I had sewn without cutting off, some with just a small amount cut and others with \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[87,88,70,76,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/so-sew-easy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}