I’m making a quilt for my mom.  It is going to be a big project.

This is what the piles of pieces look like:

Sewing will begin tomorrow.  So much sewing.  So much ironing.  So much pinning.

After all of that cutting, I had to decompress by making a baby quilt quilt top.

Same main idea.  This quilt will be a little different than the king sized one I’m making, though, because I have decided to make this baby quilt using a jelly roll.

A Jelly Roll is a group 20 of fabric strips 2.5 inches wide and approximately 42 inches long, usually with 10 different coordinating fabrics.  USUALLY.   I actually used a little more than a jelly roll.  I needed 22 strips of fabric, so I cut two 2.5 inch strips of 11 fabrics from selvedge to selvedge.  If you have a jelly roll, you may also need to add two 2.5 inch strips of another coordinating or complimentary fabric.  I also needed a yard and a half of background solid fabric.  I chose white.  From this white fabric, I cut (from selvedge to selvedge) a 2.5 inch strip, two 4.5 inch strips, and six 6.5 inch strips.

I needed to make four basic blocks.

I needed thirty-six “edge” blocks (4.5 x 6.5 inch background fabric, three 2.5 x 2.5 squares of jelly roll fabric)

I needed nine 6.5 inch x 6.5 inch background (white) fabric

I needed sixteen nine-square blocks with background (white) square in the middle (each square 2.5 x 2.5)

I needed twenty L shape blocks (4.5 x 4.5 background square, and five 2.5 x 2.5 jelly roll squares)

Each of these blocks, after sewn to completion, should be 6.5 x .6.5 inches squared.

You could cut your jelly rolls into 2.5 x 2.5 inch pieces first, and then begin piecing them together.  I chose to go the easy way and strip pieced my jelly rolls.  I chose three strips of fabric and sewed them together, and then after ironing, I cut these into 2.5 inch strips, resulting in these 2.5 x 6.5 inch strips.

While sewing the jelly roll strips together, I tried to make sure that if I put one fabric on the center of a trio, that I put the same fabric on the outside of a trio, that way when I had to match blocks side by side, I was less likely to have matching fabrics next to each other.  I also strip pieced the white 2.5 x 2.5 inch strip with two jelly roll strips to make the nine-patch blocks.  You’ll notice that each 2.5 x 2.5 white square has a pink/brown stripe square opposite a pink jacks square.  That was my center trio.

To make the L shape blocks, I strip pieced a duo of fabrics.  You’ll notice almost every L shape piece has a green striped fabric next to a pink polka dot print.  That was my duo (2.5 x 4.5).  Add that to a 4.5 x 4.5 square and a trio, and you have an L shape block.

The white 4.5 inch sashes were further cut into 4.5 x 4.5 blocks.  My two 4.5 sashes only made 14 blocks, so I used the extra 6.5 sashes to make another two 4.5 x 4.5 blocks.

The white 6.5 inch sashes were further cut into nine 6.5 x 6.5 blocks, and thirty six 6.5 x 4.5 inch strips.

After all of the sewing, I arranged them on the floor, making sure to avoid putting matching fabrics side by side, and to make sure that the colors were evenly distributed.

Then I pieced all of the blocks together.

The resulting quilt top is 54.5 x 54.5 inches.

I could see this pattern working well for a boy quilt, with maybe a darker background fabrics, and more reds and oranges and blues and greens…

I could also see using this pattern for a fun twin quilt.  You’d need a lot more jelly rolls

I’m still debating how I should quilt the back….

Oh, and my inspiration for these quilts?

Looks like TV is good for something (and thank goodness for DVR and phone cameras!).