Jelly Rolls and Jelly Fish

 Last Saturday was "National Jelly Roll Day.".. who knew? We were all supposed to pull out our Jelly Rolls and quilt something. Did you?

I'm as much a precut fan as anyone, but I have to say, the Jelly Roll is not my favorite-- it's all about the pinked edges. With charm squares and layer cakes, you can cut the fuzz off-- (that sounds like a swear--  heehee.) Not so with these strips. If ever I need a 2-1/2" strip, I just cut it out of fat quarters!

The only Jelly Rolls I have are from my Fat Quartershop Sew Sampler subscription... in the name of moving excess fabric out of here, I decided to unroll them. This roll came from a box over the summer-- the fabric is super cute and colorful-- it deserves to be out of my closet.

It's perfect for this "Snickerdoodle" pattern from the "Perfect Five Quilts" book. It's meant to be made from charm packs, but the base units are all 2-1/2" wide so I figured my strips would work. 

 I

I did get sixteen red snickerdoodles made. As I sewed them together, I tried to use the outside of the pinked points as the "edge"-- it works well enough, but it's not the super high degree of accuracy I usually love. I had to trim them down a bit. I'll soldier on.

Unfortunately, the day after "National Jelly Roll Day," Mr. SFO declared "National Seal Your Own Driveway Day." Instead of telling him to cut the fuzz off, I agreed to help. Our first house was a fixer upper-- pretty typical in the day of Bob Vila's "This Old House." The house we're in now is newer, but starting to need some things-- it was fun to relive our youthful home improvement days and the driveway did come out nice. I'm a lot more sore than I ever remembered being though!

Here's a finish I had this weekend-- this The Pattern Basket's new Sunflower Seeds pattern.

I mixed up quite a few of my favorite things-- Kim Diehl's Sage and Sea Glass fabric-- some Basic Grey-- and the orange fabric came from a Halloween collection. I love Margaret Languedoc's patterns-- this is the first one I've ever bought, though-- it came together perfectly. I'm thinking of going back for more-- I've had my eye on one of her bird patterns forever.

I'll even show off the back...

So you probably noticed I'm on a table runner jag and this is why--  I need longarm practice!

The longarm is so fun and so addictive, it should probably be illegal. I was able to complete this in a couple of hours, instead of throwing it into a drawer for four years. Mostly I am just stitching in the ditch and doing a little ruler work-- freemotion is still kind of hard for me, but it's coming along and ultimately what I want to be doing. I'd love to get to the point where I could just help my local quilt guild get charity quilts finished easily.

So that was my weekend-- looking forward to digitizing Stitches of the Sea this week-- I must have Jelly Rolls still on the brain-- it's going to be a Jellyfish!

xox

Carol