Jelly Roll Quilt Race

So last week in clinic, one of our regular patients asks me if I've ever seen a Jelly Roll race.  Blame it on the fact I've been dieting, but I envision a plate full of nice sweet jelly rolls with a bunch people having some sort of contest shoving them into their mouths.  Anyway, after my brief delusion, I said, "Oh yeah, a jelly roll... gotcha."  Now maybe my brain was still on the edible jelly roll, but I didn't quite get the full concept, so I Googled "jelly roll quilt race".  Boy was I in the dark!  Very cool, fun and hey, why not?

Joan's didn't have a full jelly roll and what they had was not to my taste.  Our local quilt shop here in Monticello did not have any jelly rolls, so I decided I would "design my own".  I chose 11 different cathedral batiks in a variety of colors.  The quilt shop lady inspired/insisted I throw in some brighter colors with the more muted colors I was choosing.  Anyway, after some trial and error, I chose 11 colors from the cathedral batiks.  The cathedral batiks are very cool in that they go from dark at one selvage to a lighter shade at the other selvage.  They actually look like they were gradient dyed.

Anyway, after purchasing too much (1/2 yd each), I went home and cut my 2 1/2" strips and started sewing them end to end.  After a couple of  "oops" sewing the strips together, I was ready to start the strip sewing.  Before I started sewing the strip together, I ironed the seams that joined them.  As I worked my way down, I kept folding the strips back and forth on top of each other.  When I was done ironing I had a neat fan folded pile of the strips.  I was able to take both ends, one at the bottom of the pile and the other at the top, line them up and take the whole mess to the sewing machine.  Unceremoniously I dropped the fan folded pile into a box to the left of my chair.  My eight year old son volunteered to sit beside me and kind of line up the strips.  In some ways, that just slowed me down, but for the most part I did sew pretty fast.  I did goof and run out of bobbin thread and that slowed me up to.  However, HOW that lady in the video did it in 25 minutes, I have NO clue!  I wasn't really "racing", but it took me about an hour and 15 minutes.  Even if I hadn't stopped to wind a bobbin or had to resew the area that I did with an empty bobbin, I don't think I would have been in contention.

The overall design came out fairly pleasing.  The kids are calling the Joseph quilt based on Joseph and the coat of many colors.  It also challenged me to work outside of my comfort zone.  The process is totally random and even if you try to "plan" your randomness, it is just not possible.  If you're like me and want everything planned and plotted, this will challenge you. 

The lady at the quilt shop here in Monticello had not heard of the jelly roll quilt race until I told her and so she was anxious to see what it looked like.  I took the top in today and she said she liked the way the colors came out.  We were talking, and as it is smaller than a twin quilt and my son seems to like it, I think I'm going to do some "piano keys" with the remaining fabric and then get some black to set of all the colors.  Working.....