Find a jelly roll, sew a quick quilt!

We’ve been in our new house for three months now, and I have to admit that I’m still trying to figure out where things belong and, more to the point, where I tucked things away! In our old house, my office/sewing room had a good sized walk-in closet which I kept fairly organized with all of my sewing supplies. In the new house, I have a nice space to sew, but the storage is mostly downstairs. Unfortunately, that makes it easy to ignore tasks that I should be doing, like unpacking tubs of fabric and determining “what’s what.”

One Saturday in January, I began the task of unpacking fabric tubs when I came across a jelly roll that I had forgotten about. In an instant, my good intentions were set aside as I ran upstairs, determined to sew just for fun. Unpacking the tubs could wait for another day. What I needed was a quick sewing fix! The end result was this pretty throw quilt.

Luckily, I had all the supplies on hand for my quick-fix sew day:

• The pretty Sweetwater jelly roll (the Sweet Tea collection)
• My favorite Moda Indigo Chambray for the setting triangles and border
• A free jelly roll pattern by Zen Chic called “Chill out” which is available on Fat Quarter Shop’s website
• Enough coordinating, random-sized pieces of yardage for a pieced backing

The Sweet Tea collection came out in 2019 and it is still a favorite of mine. I used Sweet Tea on my Lakeside Star quilt! The full color story in this collection includes vanilla, red, taupe and blue, but I omitted the reds for this project.

Since I omitted the reds, I ended up making fewer blocks and had to deviate from the pattern.  But it’s such a simple pattern it was fairly easy to make the adjustments.  I also added a nice wide border which frames the on-point blocks nicely.

My friend Katy of Woods Edge Quilting suggested we use a motif called Celtic Sea for this project, and she was spot on! I just love the stretched out effect that this panto has on this throw quilt. It’s organic and interesting without being too fussy. Thanks so much, Katy!

Sewing can bring us joy in so many ways . . . the appreciation we have for beautiful fabrics, the accomplishment we feel when we learn a new technique, the happiness we experience when we make a quilt for someone we love. And then there is the simple joy I experienced on a Saturday afternoon when I threw chores to the wayside and lost myself in a few hours of quick-fix sewing. Aren’t we lucky to be quilters?

Thanks for stopping by, quilting friends!

~Taunja