Quilting On National "Sew A Jelly Roll" Day!

Woo hoo!  It's National Sew A Jelly Roll Day!!

I don't buy a lot of jelly rolls although I love to cut my own Jelly Roll (2-1/2") strips from project leftovers to save for scrap projects.  However, last month I was lucky enough to snag a kit for a pattern I've long wanted to make:  Bonnie Sullivan's "Over and Down Under" quilt originally designed to showcase her "Woolies" flannel fabric line.

On the left is the kit contents (jelly roll and border/binding fabric) and on the right is the Riley Blake National Park Pillow panels yardage that I am going to use for the backing.  I had liked this set of panels because it picked up the colors of the kit fabrics and because we will be going camping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park next month.  To fill out the rest of the back,  I purchased yardage (center) of the "Signs" print  from the National Parks line in Cream.  

I'm hoping to make this a "sew day" and just work on this project.  To be ready for the day, I reviewed the pattern and supplies.  I had wanted to pre-cut my fabrics but finishing up my "Christmas Ribbons" quilt took longer than expected (which always happens so is what should be expected!).  I also think I will cut some of the things different than the pattern calls for.  

This past week I had found a picture on my phone of a quilt top my MIL had made and asked her if she remembered what it was.  She didn't initially but after looking around, found the pattern -- which was made from jelly roll strips -- and decided she wanted to make it again.  She had picked up a partial Jelly Roll at her guild's "take away" table but would need to add a few strips to it and pick up two more coordinating background fabrics to make her project.  I told her about today so if she was able to get the supplies, we may sew in tandem and Skype during the course of the day.  

I also got an email from the Fat Quarter Shop that said Kimberly Jolly will be doing a Live Stream today on You Tube at 2 PM CT (3 PM EST).  She will be showing new fabric releases and previewing their new Jelly Roll pattern book.

It will be interesting to see how this goes!

12 Noon Update:

Okay, everything is cut out and I actually stuck to the pattern directions for doing so. 

This was a great work out for my Stripology ruler (note: link is to the even larger XL that I hope to upgrade to one day).  Whenever I have gobs of strips and squares to cut (whether from yardage or pre-cuts), the ruler makes it easy to cut many multiples at once. 

There is not as much leftovers in a Jelly Roll kit as there usually is in a yardage kit but I guess that also depends on the design of the quilt.  This one definitely makes use of most of it!

All that's left!

So for the next hour or so it will be a lot of chain pieced "flip and sewing" and then trimming.  

Then it will be onto laying out all the tipped rectangles and the squares to preview the layout.

4 PM Update:

Turns out there were many other You Tubers I follow who posted vids for today. 

Emily @ TeriblyRad (who is better known for her 3 Yard Quilts series):  

Jo Carmel @ Quilts By Carmel in CA:  

Even the Fabric Cafe (the 3 Yard Quilt people) had one:  

And a "Public Service Announcement" with advice on using your own fabric to participate:

My MIL actually found another project to work on and after some problems getting her computer working, we were able to Skype for a while too.  

I've gotten a bit more done in the last few hours:

The rectangles were all prepped, trimmed and pressed.  I also sewed up the "bonus triangle" cutoffs too!

Then it was laying out the quilt on the design wall, starting with the outer borders of rectangles.  I threw them in a paper bag, shook it up and picked them blindly in the hopes of developing a random initial layout:

At this point, I'm half way through filling in the center with squares.

Once that is finished (and I tweak the layout if necessary), the next step will be taking down each row to sew them together.

8 PM Update

Well that's it for today!

The Fat Quarter Shop Live Stream was fun and there are some cute quilts in their new jelly roll book. 

Also be sure to pick up the discount code from the video, good until Monday for 20% off jelly rolls. 

As for me, I finished filling in the layout and no tweaks were needed!

As the day drew to an end, I had half of the rows of rectangles and squares sewn together.  

It looks so much smaller once the seam allowances are taken up!

Bonus:  Putting the rows together was also a perfect opportunity to leader/ender a few more trapezoids for my Quiltville Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll quilt.

DH and I have the opening shift for our community garden tomorrow and I have the follow-up cross stitch class later in the afternoon so I doubt I'll get back to this before Monday.  However, I'm very excited to get this to a top and then work on the planned pieced backing!

For my first Jelly Roll Day this was pretty good!  In the coming months, I'll have to pick out another roll and a pattern to be ready for next year!  Hope you enjoyed the day too!