Jelly Jam Roll Quilt

 I've made my first real size quilt ... OK a lap quilt ... but it's done and beautiful! It's called Jelly Jam Roll, and it's a free pattern from The Fat Quarter Shop. I wasn't able to print out the pattern, because I'm out of colour ink, but it was really much better to follow Kimberly Jolly's video on YouTube. The whole quilt went together really quickly - I started it on 31st August, and finished it yesterday (6th September). It's one of their shortcut quilts, which means you sew strips together, and then cut those strips into smaller pieces, re-arrange them and sew everything up. I used the same wavy stitch I used to quilt the mini kitazine quilt. I now want to make a larger one next - usinga Tilda Pardon My Garden jelly roll, for the bed, and then make quilts for Mum and Angelique.

                      

I used an old Moda Petite Prints Deux Jelly Roll, the binding is some of the fabric I bought to make a bag to store my sewing machine's extension table. I bought so much of it I had plenty to use for the binding for the quilt! The backing fabric is the pre-shrunk backing fabric I bought on eBay. Next time I think I'll go for a printed fabric for the backing.

The advise from Kimberly was to not think too much about which fabrics to use, and to start with I was scared to just pick out fabrics, but in the end it just works! 

I had to put all the pieces of the quilt top on the bed, to arrange the blocks, and then I had to iron the bits for the quilt sandwich on the bed too! I wish I had half the room these people on YouTube have to work on and with ... 

I used Aurifil 50wt in shade 2000, for the piecing and the quilting. I used a dark pink thread to machine and then hand sew the binding though because I didn't want the pale colour to show on the pink of the binding. I've got a little collection of Aurifil 50wt threads now, although they're all neutrals, but I've got lots of colours coming soon ... I've bought a box of threads for myself, and I'm getting another set for either Xmas or my birthday. I bought two more colours yesterday, and those are to use for quilting my Grandmother's Flower Garden EPP quilt, and I wanted to use matching colours rather than one of the neutrals. 

(This is for future reference 😊)

This is the back of the quilt, and it shows the wavy stitch I chose for the quilting. I wasn't confident enough to use a straight stitch for my second attempt at quilting, so this stitch didn't have to be as straight.

    

And the finishing touch ...