When we last spoke I had just finished the Jelly Roll Race Quilt front. I mentioned that I was making this quilt for my friend Audra’s new baby boy, Reece. Well the quilt front we finished was quite large. My intention was not for a twin sized quilt, but rather for a play date throw-down in the grass rough and tumble quilt.
With that said I decided to break up the Jelly Roll Race quilt into three sections. Deciding on the first two was easy, but how to make the third took a little deliberation. That’s when after much discussion with Roxy I decided to continue the race one more time through the machine. Let me just tell you, that was one long quilt front!
At this point all I needed to do was to decide where to ‘rip’ out the seams to create three quilt fronts. This came down to some pretty easy math; add up the strips and divide by three!
Now that I have the three fronts it became apparent that I would need sashing and a border to set off the ‘race’ as well as make it the final desired size. I knew that it would need something going in since the width was only 2ft and I needed more than that for a baby quilt. Before adding the sashing and borders it was necessary to ‘square’ up the quilt fronts to make them true and even.
I chose a white on white and a white on green polka dot fabric. Using the same concepts as the My Sunshine Quilt I cut the white on white into 2 ½” strips and the green into 4 ½” strips. In the end they will be 2” and 4” after the 2- ¼” seam allowances. In the same manner as the My Sunshine Quilt you will stitch the sides and trim the strips down and then stitch the top and trim the strips down. Remember to trim your edges and salvages so you are working with straight edges.
In the photo below you can see where I stitch off the edge of the bottom of the quilt. After you complete the stitching you will want to trim the edges down. This takes the guess work out of measuring your sashing and give you a perfect finish every time!
Here is the quilt front with the completed sashing. Starting to take shape!
Ta da! The final quilt front with the green dot border! Don’t you think it frames the ‘race’ nicely?
In this process I discovered Sulky thread for quilting. Man do I love it! You have to be careful with threading and tension, but it makes quilting go so much more smoothly than before. I chose to quilt the borders and then every third Jelly Strip row.
On a side note, it took a bit for me to get the tension correct on the Sulky thread. Translation…I had to rip out quite a bit. Well, look who was more than eager to help. Needless to say he is yet again in the hinder category.
Time to bind and these quilts are done! Look for them on my Etsy shop soon!
Next Up…disappearing 4-patch with Dori! Here’s a sneak peak!
Happy Quilting! Let’s chat again soon!