Hello friends! We’ve recently returned from a lovely holiday in Devon and Cornwall and the quilt that I bound on my return reminded me of lazy days on the beach. I’ve made a few quilts but they have mainly been presents for new babies. I really wanted one for our sofa – partly to snuggle under whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing on cold evenings and partly to hide our tired sofa!
Spiral of potential
As a child of the 80s, jelly is a pudding usually consumed with ice cream. As an adult, it’s excellent after having wisdom teeth removed. As a sewist, it’s something to do with quilting…I’m still not sure why Jelly Rolls have been given their name but they look amazing when they arrive as a spiral of potential. They come in uniform strips of coordinating patterns which means there’s less time spent trying to find fabrics for a quilt, and they also considerably reduce the time spent cutting uniform pieces.
Prior to this quilt, I had never used a jelly roll but I’m a complete convert! For this quilt, I bought the Ruby Star Tarry Town from The Sewing Studio (which coincidentally is a shop in Cornwall). I think our (then pending) holiday invaded my subconscious when I picked the backing fabric, but more on that later. The main attraction with this fabric set was this little guy – a happy tortoise having a little stroll!
The maths of quilts excites me in quite a nerdy way. I spent quite a while on Pinterest losing myself in various pattern ideas, combinations and shapes. I decided to use this mini tutorial as it is quite simple, but impactful.
After cutting multiple lengths of 11″ strips, I had lots of fun choosing the sets of 5 for the squares. The initial blocks or 5 strips came together quite quickly (probably a few hours).
When it came to the next step, I cut two squares in half then realised that they had to be done with the same diagonal line each time or the squares wouldn’t “go back together”. Unfortunately I realised this after cutting the first two in different ways! After a bit of head-scratching, I decided to split my squares into two piles and create an even number of squares cut ‘each way’. This meant that I had to make two extra squares to create complete sets. However, the silver lining is that the dimensions of the larger quilt are better suited to our sofa so I probably would have done this anyway (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!).
To give each block its own space in the quilt, I framed each pair of blocks with some neutral fabric – stars are neutral, right?! I really like the way the frame helps each block stand out.
Snoopy is surfing!
I made the quilt top before I looked for a backing fabric as I wasn’t sure what dimensions the finished quilt was going to be. I’ve long been a fan of Snoopy – to the extent that I had wallpaper in my room as a teenager. My parents thought I would grow out of it so only allowed one wall to be papered with the other three neutral! I still haven’t stopped loving him so when I saw this fabric at Love Crafts, I was totally sold. As an added bonus, Snoopy is surfing in some of the drawings, which is a sport that Mr Mouse has taken up so I knew he would like it too.
Making the sandwich
Mel from stitch_make_bake put a tutorial on her Instagram stories about using strong sticky tape to keep a quilt backing in place whilst sandwiching it together. I really struggle with keeping quilt sandwiches taut enough to avoid wrinkles but can confirm that this method helps! It would probably be even better with a wooden floor but we don’t have one.
I also used Clover quilting safety pins that purplesewingcloud recommended (shown on another quilt here). They are much easier to use than standard safety pins because of the little kink in the metal, and worth the investment.
Finishing touches
In keeping with the backing fabric, I bought some binding from Higgs and Higgs with seaside motifs including tiny little crabs which are very cute. I also put some labels from the jelly roll selvedge on the front corners, and some trusty Kylie and the Machine labels on the back.
I’m writing this from underneath our new quilt. It needs a wash to remove the chalk quilting guidelines I put on, but I can’t prise myself from underneath it! Thanks for reading :o)
My Stash Reduction Quest 