Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Jelly roll race - part one!

Bright Jewels Sushi Roll - (Bali Fabrics, Inc) - 44 inch long strips
This batik 'sushi roll' (as it is titled) has been in my stash since I got it last year as a birthday present; I decided to have a go of a jelly roll race quilt, following this tutorial, on Saturday.  It took about 90 minutes to put the strips together (not counting the stoppage to head to Invercargill to watch the Southern Steel beat the Waikato Magic in the ANZ netball competition - WAY TO GO STEEL!!, followed by a delicious meal at Waxy O'Shea's with Broni and Buck and Maria).
Sew each strip together, end to end on a 45 angle, until all the strips are joined. Trim the corners (no need to press), cut about 18 inches off one end of the strip (so that when you sew everything together there will be staggered joins).  Then fold the strip end to end and sew along the length of the strip. Cut at the end where the fold is.
I pressed the seam up, then folded the strip end to end again to sew along the length (so now the piece is two strips wide).
Keep repeating the fold-over and stitching; the piece will keep doubling in width, while getting shorter in length.

Getting wider...loving the colour combo's!

This is what I ended up with! I decided I would unpick it in the middle and make it into two lap quilts. I think they will be an ideal size for practising my free motion quilting skills.
 


Sunday meant a trip into town to take advantage of the 30% off sale at Spotlight (and my wonderful $100 gift card that my co-workers gave me to celebrate my ten years of working at the school!) - I bought some deep purple solid to use as backing and binding, as well as a navy based batik to border one of the quilts, and a purple/blue batik to border the other quilt.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jen,
    I love your jelly roll lap quilt tops. They look really cool. A jelly roll quilt is on my to-do list one of these days. I hope you'll blog the finished quilts.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Tammy, I have tonight just been adding the borders to them and they are looking really cool. Hopefully at some stage in the weekend, in between everything else that needs done, I will get them basted ready to free motion quilt. I will certainly blog the progress...so watch this space!! Cheers, Jenny

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    2. Hi Tammy, I finished one of the lap quilts, thought you might like to see how it turned out...http://jenscraftwork.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/jelly-roll-race-part-2.html
      Cheers, Jenny

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