Jelly Roll Chain Tutorial

I used to buy Jelly rolls like crazy….now I will buy Jelly rolls if I have a specific project in mind because I realized that my Jelly rolls just took up space because I would never have enough strips for what I needed or whatever the reason was….for some reason I wasn’t using them.

So last year I found these Jelly Rolls on sale and I just couldn’t pass it up…because I got them for like 20$ or something…they usually run around 40$ …so I thought..well I love those colors and I get 2 for 1? ( basically??….well I should buy them)

So as soon as I got home I thought I should come up with a plan for them. And I drafted up a block…..it’s nothing original…it’s an Irish Chain type of a block…..but It uses up these Jelly rolls and white back ground fabric.

You will need 3 jelly rolls (or 95 colored strips)

also:

2.25 yards of back ground fabric ( you need a total of 30 back ground strips cut at 2.5 inches) So pull out all of the background colored strips from your jelly roll if that applies and then make up the difference with your back ground fabric.

binding you can use leftover jelly roll strips

or

you will need 9- 2.5 inch  strips. If  you want to buy yardage you will need 3/4 of a yard for a little extra.

Backing you will need 6 yards of regular fabric or 2.5 yards of extra wide fabric

What I do want to show is how I put them together…because it’s fast and easy and it makes it so you don’t really have to think about anything and you can put it down and then pick it back up as you need. I get a lot of piecing done because I sew 15 minutes here or there and I like to have a project that sits by the sewing machine …..to break up the monotony of my every day work.

I made 80 of these blocks which resulted in quilt that will end up being 80×100:

But I only had 2 jelly rolls so I added strips to my jelly rolls..lots of repeats….in my sample.

How I made the block is that I started with these panels:

Trust me on this:

you will need 10 panels that look like this:

2 back ground strips on one side and 3 colored strips

  Then 10 panels that look like this:

with only one background strip on the end and 4 colored strips. It doesn’t matter the color order or anything. I randomly placed the colors.

Then you need 5 panels with 5 colored strips:

again completely random placement. I just inserted these diagrams.

So once you get all of those panels sewn & pressed.

You are ready to cut them into 2.5 inch strips:

So you should have three piles of panels…..

Here are 3 baskets:

I label them 1-2-3

and I cut my panels one set at a time….all of my panels with 2 white background strips on one end go in container #1 ( this is actually  row#1 and # 5  in my block)

Then in container # 2  put all of my cut panel strips that have 1 white background square at the end . ( this is actually strip # 2 and #4 in my block)

In container #3 I place place all of my cut strips of all the colored squares. ( no background color in this panel) and this is row #3 in my block

Then I go through and chain piece all of my #1’s to my #2’s. Lining up the 2 background squares at each end ( those are also your 4&5’s so piece them all) and then put them in one of the containers.

After you complete that you should only have 2 containers left…one with your set of 2 strips sewn together and one with your strip #3 ( all colored squares) Now you chain piece all of the strips of two to your # 3 strip with the 2 white squares on the outside end …with the single strip being sewn on the side of #3.

After you sew all of one side….flip them and sew your #4&5 section on to the section of 1-2-3 that are already finished. Make sure the background squares are flipped to the opposite side of your 1&2 strips.

then all of your blocks are finished.

Then you can arrange them however you want….I actually sewed mine into group of 4 ( you can see in the photo up above) with the white background squares to meet in the center. That gave me 20 blocks that I set in a 4×5 setting to complete the quilt. Then add your borders If you wish…..sandwich and quilt as desired.

Here is the completed quilt ( well minus the binding) :

I am thinking I will sell this in my Etsy Shop….You can find my shop here.

But I am going to list it after it’s bound.

I quilted continuous curves in the colored patches and swirly ribbons in the white areas.

Here’s the back:

So Here is a great tutorial for you to make this jelly roll chain. It’s quick, easy and uses those jelly rolls that we all seem to collect.

If you are interested in purchasing this quilt let me know…and I won’t post it in my Etsy shop….I am going to list it for 600$. It’s a good queen sized quilt…and it just makes me feel happy in love!

blessings

Charisma