Jelly Rolls: Session 2: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Jelly rolls, while fun, also have an evil side to them. Well, maybe I shouldn't say evil, but they do have certain quirks about them that we need to keep in mind when we're working with them. First of all, that's all the fabric you get. You're not gonna have any more, unless you go buy a second jelly roll, so that doesn't leave a lot of room for error when you're cutting. So instead of measure twice, cut once, you better be measuring three times before you cut.

Because, like I said, there isn't a lot of room for error. So when you go shopping, keep that in mind, that you may be tight on fabric. So you have a couple of options when you're at the quilt store, you can either buy an extra roll or you can buy some coordinating fat quarters. Just a couple is all you need, just to make sure you have a little margin of error there. You can buy extra binding fabric.

You could buy a little extra backing fabric, and either or both should coordinate very well with your fat quarter or with your jelly rolls and give a little more interest to your quilt. Or you can always fill in with fabric from your stash. Another option is to use a background fabric. So maybe you wanna buy a white or black or a tone on a tone for the background of your quilt. And then these become the accent colors in your patches.

So you have several different options there, but do keep in mind when you go shopping that you are gonna have a limited amount of fabric. And if you have fabric, like I do, that has sat and seasoned for a couple of years, sometimes you can't find that fabric out in the marketplace anymore. Usually after a run is done, the manufacturer doesn't necessarily reprint more fabric. So you may come up short and a need to look for other ways to stretch your fat quarters. Another thing about fat quarters is they are not meant to be pre-washed.

If you wash these, even though the edges are pinked, you can see the little zigzags here on the end. They're pinked. They do fray. You can start seeing some of that fraying there. If you wash these, truly, it will be a disaster.

They fray. They will twist together in the washing machine and then you have a really hard time separating them, because you are dealing with long single strips of fabric. And so they do tend to twist and they are going to lose their crispness. And that's part of the joy of these strips is that they are nice and crisp. So they're going to be easy to work with and you'll have very precise piecing because of it.

You don't wanna lose that. Now I know the purists say always prewash your fabric because it might bleed. Well, most manufacturers today have very, very good production methods and typically the fabric will not bleed. If it's going to bleed, it's going to possibly be a dark fabric. A black, a navy blue, reds can be notorious for bleeding.

You can test it in just a little cup of hot water but 99 chances out of 100, if it's by a major manufacturer, your fabric is not going to bleed. Things have changed for the better today in that regard. The one thing I would watch though, is if you're making your own jelly rolls and cutting the strips, you may have trouble with hand-dyed fabric. A lotta times people don't rinse the fabric enough and get all of the dye set and those could bleed into your quilt. And I speak from experience.

I was working on a customer quilt one time and she had used hand-dyed fabric and I had sprayed a little bit of water onto the quilt to make the holes from the needle close up from where I had to unsew a bit of stitching and the fabric started to run into, it was a beautiful maroon type of coloring and it ran into the cream fabric and I was in a panic. And that was with just a little bit of water on it. So watch those hand-dyed fabrics. They can cause you problems. If you still are worried about the pre shrinking and you want the fabric to shrink.

One thing that you can do is steam the strip. Give it a good burst of steam and that will indeed shrink it just a little bit. But quite frankly, I would just press if you need to, if they're a little wrinkled coming off the roll, but I wouldn't, the idea is they're supposed to be fast and easy and ready to use. I would go ahead, make your project, and then wash it. You'll get the beautiful quilted look that we see on beloved quilts, the older quilts.

The only thing you need to keep in mind is if you are not going to wash the strips, do not wash any other fabrics in your project. Make sure everything has not been pre shrunk, because otherwise it won't shrink evenly and your quilt, instead of having a nice quilted look, will have a distorted look and you don't want that. Another problem that I find with fat quarters, or jelly rolls, not really a problem, but something just to keep in mind as you work is that you have limited value. And I wanna show you this. Let's put these out here.

I've got these strips that I had gotten in a jelly roll. And then I wanna show you these strips also. So you can see what I'm talking about. Let's start with this one. The only real value change that you have is from the white to the gray.

Otherwise, these are all pretty much in that same tone. These are almost interchangeable. These two are pretty much interchangeable and there's not a lot of value difference between there. You don't get the distinct light, medium, dark. The only thing that's really popping this is your white.

So this is a case where, if you can, put in another fabric from your stash or from a different manufacturer just to pop it and give some contrast. The other thing I find a lot with jelly roll quilts is that manufacturers will give you several colors, but of the exact same print. And so you wanna be careful because you don't always want to have the two prints next to each other. You may or may not, depending on the use, but, again, you don't see a lot of contrast here other than the black fabric. If you take that out, value wise, they're all pretty much the same.

So what you have to do with jelly rolls is, instead of looking for the contrast with the color or with the value is to play the prints off of each other. So take your small print and let it play off a big print. And now we have contrast. Now we have interest in the quilt. You can use the two side by side because they are different colors.

It will give some variety, but you may like it better if you're playing it against an entirely different pattern. Or you may say that's a little too close because they're both rounded, they're both dots. So then play it off of a different geometric design. Really try and look for ways to play pattern against each other and even the colors. Incorporate background fabrics.

That really helps a lot. If you have a background that can tie it together. whether it's a tone on tone, a solid or even an interesting print, depending on what you're working with, especially if you're working with solids, you could bring in a print for your background fabric very easily that would look nice. I think you'll find that will give more interest to your quilts. Any time you can introduce some different fabrics, it will make a difference.

Now, I think you'll find that, if you're like me, when you first started out, we tended to work from patterns in books and if you have a sewing or home economics background, we were probably brought up to be a little more rigid in what was a match and what went together. And sometimes it's hard to free yourself up to say all of these patterns and all of these colors will play together. We were always told that you don't wear plaids and stripes together. Well, plaids and stripes can play beautifully together in a quilt if they're used correctly. So you have to free yourself up, and my very first scrap quilt was agony because I really wanted to be able to place colors just so and have that control over my quilt.

And it was hard to let go and just let that kid come out and play and say, why not? Who says you can't put these two fabrics next to each other? So realize that the jelly roll is meant to be fun. And it really is perfect for learning to be scrappy. So how do you get scrappy?

The best thing is try new combinations. Remember that in this jelly roll, everything coordinates. Everything's going to go together, because it's from the same fabric line. So you can't go wrong, no matter which fabrics you put next to each other, they will work and maybe next to each other, two pieces next to each other may not be wild and exciting. For instance, I may have these two that I've put together.

It's okay, but it's not popping. It's not exciting. I might like this combination a lot better. Well, realize that I'm only looking at two little strips of my quilt right now, or two little blocks. When I get this combination in with everything else in my quilt, it's all gonna play well together.

Excuse me. And even those ones that we consider a little bit of an ugly fabric or an ugly duckling will actually shine in your quilt and be a good supporting role player. So try new combinations. Another thing to do is just simply put your strips out there. Okay.

Here's my strips. And then simply pick a pair. All right, there. I've got a color combination. All right.

Well, I know I wanna do some more with it, so now just pick another one and add it in there and pick another one. Doesn't matter, add it in there. And all of a sudden, it's going to start working and it's going to open your eyes too. You don't have to be rigid. Serendipity is a good thing.

If all else fails and you really have a hard time with looking and picking, I tell people, get a paper bag, open up your strips, put them in the paper bag, reach in, grab two. That's your combination. The only way you get to put one back is if you grabbed two of the same. If I grabbed two gray, okay, I get to put one gray back but you gotta live by the rules. You can't be cheating.

All right, you can cheat once in a while, but for the most part, don't cheat. And I think you'll be surprised at how wonderful it works for learning to be scrappy. And you'll be surprised at, once you have that quilt sewed together, how much you're really going to love it. And once you've made one scrappy quilt, I think you're gonna find your eyes open and you're gonna wanna make more because it truly is releasing your inner child and it truly is a lot of fun to play. So make sure that you keep these considerations in mind because I really do want you to work smarter and not harder, because quilting is meant to be fun.

It's not meant to be work.