Detail from "Rain Dance," an original quilt by Sherrie Spangler

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Rolling out the color



I'm rolling along with the jelly roll quilt
while the world outside is stormy.

To recap: I came to Arizona to escape the rain of the Northwest, and now it's been snowing/raining for the past two days.

So I decided to buy the brightest jelly roll pack of batiks that I could find and make a Jelly Roll 1600 quilt. First you sew all 40 strips together, end to end. (I jazzed mine up by inserting smaller lengths of a bright yellow in about eight spots.) Then you cut 18 inches off of one end.

Now you have a 1600-inch (less the 18 inches) strip. You cut that in half and sew the two lengths together, then cut that in half and sew those two together like I'm doing above.

Still stormy outside, but now the quilt is taking shape.

When you get to this point (below), with 16 strips sewn together, you only have to cut it one more time.

Then you can play around with the arrangement of those two halves, deciding which way to sew them together. Here are a few options:


I'm saving the final seam for tomorrow, just so I have something to look forward to. And it's supposed to be SUNNY!

Have a colorful day



4 comments:

Cathy Hetzel said...

Hi Sherrie....your quilt top looks great....they are so much fun.....I made one last year for my sister and her hubby.......Cathy

Del said...

Gorgeous spring colors.

Ladybug said...

THAT's a whole lotta sewin' - beautiful results! Received your email & I did hear from Julia - Thanks to you both.

The sky in these pictures reminds me of NW WA... rain predicted here for the rest of the week, so you will probably beat us sun-wise before the week is over.

Bet you have more projects up your sleeve to take care of any more nasty weather days you may have while there... enjoy the change of scenery, anyway. :-)

Living to work - working to live said...

I apologise for my ignorance - but who knew that it ever snowed in Arizona??? (or are we Brits just completely uneducated in matters of the USA?!)