It's a Jelly Roll of fun

Being in charge of education for our local quilt guild this year, I challenged our ladies to construct something with a Jelly Roll, be it a quilt, tote, apron, rug, placemat etc.   Jelly Rolls are a great and easy way to construct a quilt.  The fabrics are all coordinated and also precut into 2 1/2" strips.  Takes a lot of guess work from the beginning and you can get started sewing your project right a way.  And taking it one step further,  guild members did the Jelly Roll Race.

I admit I've never done the Jelly Roll Race, but took charge in learning what to do to lead the group.  After watching a few Utubes the process was pretty simple.  I decided we weren't going to make a contest of this project and let everyone sew at their own comfortable pace.  No stress,  just have fun. Members were also encouraged to make their own Jelly Rolls from their stash fabrics if they didn't already own a Jelly Roll.

As I was researching the Jelly Roll Race I was curious how it all began.  The earliest date I could find was that Jenny Down from Missouri Star Quilt saw this quilt in a quilt shop in Iowa and she asked if she could copy the technique.  However, I also found that this quilt was also called the 1600 quilt, which is how many inches a Jelly Roll measured connected end to end.  

To give added incentive to participate I suggested for the ladies to make their Jelly Roll Race quilt as a donation to the local Foster Kids Program.  It's always more fun to make a quilt with someone in mind and quilters are pretty giving people.

Here is my first Jelly Roll Race quilt measuring 50" by 64 1/2".

It was made from my own stash fabric that I cut into 42 WOF strips.  And when I say my first Jelly Roll Race quilt this all began a journey to make several to donate to Foster kids.

For guild participants who already made this quilt before I found a cool twist on the pattern called the Spinner.  With a few variations from the pattern on my part, I used the whole jelly roll making the final measurement of this quilt is 50 1/2" by 62 1/2".  This is my favorite pattern.

I am still making more spinner quilts for the Foster Kid program.  We have until fall before they will be donated.  I will post when I have all my quilts ready to go.