Tag Archives: jelly roll

Shimmer Mountains Quilt

I wanted to sew a quilt for a housewarming gift for a friend and I had this idea that I wanted it to be mountains. I used the Moda Bakeshop Sunnyside Diamond Zig Zag Quilt pattern and arranged my colors from light to dark so each chevron looked like a mountain peak.

Spring has come to Portland!


 About halfway through making this quilt I bought myself a 45 quilting ruler from Fabric Depot. I wish I had one when I started! It would have made everything faster and more accurate. Definitely recommend!

The chevrons are all Jennifer Sampou’s Shimmer2 collection.  This pattern requires 3 strips of the same pattern for each strip set so I had to use 2 jelly rolls,  but that just means I’m going to make another one for myself.

The background is Kaufman Quilters Linen in Platinum. I like the subtle texture and color over using a plain white.

Since this is a nap quilt I used flannel for the background. I didn’t want to have to piece it so I used the 60″ wide Essentials Criss Cross flannel. I made a scrappy binding with the leftover jelly roll strips. The batting is Tuscany Wool from Hobbs Batting.

When I make the one for myself I’m going to change the pattern a bit. I will fill in the bottom part of each chevron with a triangle of dark fabric so the mountain forms a whole triangle instead of a chevron. I may need to see what fat quarters of Shimmer 2 I can track down for this!

 

 

 

Jelly Roll Baby Quilt

I guess it’s become my thing to make baby quilts when my close friends have their first baby. I mean I’ve done it twice now, so that makes it a thing. Right? I was originally going to make a cut chenille blanket but last minute I changed my mind which left me with not a lot of time to complete it. I asked Natalie for some ideas and she suggested a jelly roll quilt.

I looked it up and found the perfect pattern from Fat Quarter Shop called the Jelly Roll Jam. I’ve only made one quilt before so I didn’t want to do anything to crazy.  I found watching their Youtube video on making this quilt to be a little more helpful than the written pattern.

Now I could focus on finding really awesome fabric. I ended up buying Bluebird Park by Kate & Birdie from Moda Fabrics. What really got me were these adorable hedgehogs.

sbabyquilt1

Here is the finished quilt.  Basically to make it you assemble 3 sets of 6 strips. Then you cut them up to make 9 different blocks. It’s very straightforward.  Since you only use 18 strips that means you have a enough for a scrappy binding and a second quilt!

sbabyquilt2

One thing I wish I had done on my first quilt was to make a cooler quilt back.  So on this one I saved all my strip scraps and did a stripe down the back.  Natalie gave me some great suggestions on how to get it centered. Then of course I had to to make my quilt sandwich and do the quilting. I tried 2 new things on this quilt – spray basting and quilting gloves.  The spray basting was awesome, but I’m not sure the gloves made much of a difference.

the quilt back

It took me awhile to figure out what quilting design I wanted to use, but in the end I went with the figure 8 loops. I used my chalko pen to draw guide lines so the rows would be relatively even and then I went at it.  Not sure what I did differently this time but I didn’t break a single needle! It’s not the greatest quilting in the world but it looks nice enough!

Natalie also told I should make a quilt label. This was totally not on my radar but her reasoning made sense – many quilts become family heirlooms and 20 years from now no one may remember who made it or why they made it.

sbabyquilt3