When I was growing up, my family was part of a small church group of 5-7 families. We all got together regularly for things like potlucks and game nights. It was really nice having a ready-made group of children close to my age since my sister is about seven years younger than I am. Looking back on this time period as an adult, I understand that the parents got just as much out of these get togethers as we did. One of my favourite activities was when the mothers would get together for a sewing day. At the time, my mother made the vast majority of my clothing, so I’m sure she brought some of those projects to the sewing day. While the sewing itself was interesting – it was a skill I absolutely wanted to learn – the thing that captured my imagination was when the ladies would quilt. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. The first time I saw my mother working on a quilt I was completely confused. I couldn’t understand why mom would be cutting long strips of fabric. Up until that point, my only point of sewing reference was mom making my clothes. I understood tissue patterns, joining fabric pieces, and clothes fitting. What purpose could long strips have? I was further confused when said strips were cut into triangles and subsequently sewn together to make squares. I learned very quickly to not touch them. Apparently there was a system. The magic happened for me when I saw the squares pieced together to make beautiful designs. I was enthralled.

I honestly can’t remember a time when I couldn’t sew. Granted, it was more “sewing” when I was a young child, and I don’t remember when I learned to use an electric sewing machine. I’m incredibly comfortable with the medium, but I’ve always been intimidated by quilting. In my mind, quilting is like the epitome of sewing prowess – I have no idea why. Everything about quilting is right up my alley, but I had never tried my hand at it. I think maybe I didn’t feel like I was creative enough, or maybe I didn’t think that any of my fabric choices would make sense. Let’s be honest, I’m not exactly drawn to bold colours or prints. The fabric I used for my dress cloning project is about as exciting as I get, and it was all shades of white, black, and grey. I see all these beautiful quilts with coordinating colour palates and prints I would NEVER touch come together into this beautiful amalgamation of colour, skill, and meticulousness. Quilting was something other people did, and something I could never dream of doing on my own.

Late last September I had one of those nights where I couldn’t seem to fall asleep. It was probably 3am, sleep was still eluding me, and I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole where I stumbled across a Jelly Roll Jam by the Fat Quarter Shop. The instructor broke down the steps, and while I’m AWFUL at following video tutorials, there is a PDF pattern available. This pattern is a jelly roll pattern (hence the series title). For those of you who don’t know, jelly rolls are pre-cut strips of fabric designed for quilters. They come in standard strip sizes with curated fabric bundles. The strips are then laid out so the buyer can see the various fabrics used and then rolled up and secured in a circle – the roll part of the name. I immediately went online to look at these jelly roll things and discovered that they are pretty darn pricy. Depending on the manufacturer, you may need more than one roll to complete a quilt top, and I was struggling with the idea of paying for something that I could do on my own. I have a mat, rotary cutter, and quilting ruler after all (To be fair, I only bought them because they were on sale and I was making napkins and a rotary cutter is WAY faster than scissors when you’re cutting 30 napkins.). So, I put quilting back in the box I’d had it in before and didn’t think too much about it.

About a month later, one of my best friends was in town and we were going to our local craft store. She used to work there, so she was looking for one of her old co-workers. We found her co-worker standing next to the jelly rolls, and I had been telling my bestie about my late-night YouTube perusal. As she’s talking to her old co-worker, I was staring at all the pretty colours in the jelly rolls and wondering again if I could justify the purchase. I was in the middle of convincing myself that I probably would hate the process, when I hear them discussing how expensive the jelly rolls are and are only worthwhile if you have a coupon. Lo and behold, her co-worker points out that there is a 50% off coupon. At that point, all my arguments against trying my hand at this crash and burn. My girlfriend finds a lone roll that matches our family room perfectly, and I’m sold. The jelly roll was only enough to make a small lap quilt, but my friend said that it was probably a good idea. It would be a small project that would be easily tackled and I could figure out if I even enjoyed the process. No harm, no foul.

I went home with said jelly roll, downloaded the PDF pattern, and jumped in. Oh. My. Gosh. I LOVED it. I literally finished the quilt top that night. I was back at the craft store the next day with the finished top and Becky to get the REST of the stuff to finish it. There are a lot of options available for people to send off quilt tops and have someone else do the actual assembling, quilting, and binding so that you have a finished quilt. For this project though, I really wanted a feel for the entire process to see what I actually thought of it. I did go all in and cut my own binding strips and did the quilting on my home machine. I did complete it in a single weekend, and overall, I think I got a good measure of the entire process. I’ve included pictures from the process, but they are few and far between. I was entirely too caught up to take reasonable photos.

One of the strip sets ironed, laid out, and grouped.

One of the sets seamed together, pressed, and cut into the half blocks.

EB being helpful while sewing on the binding.

What I Learned:

When I caved and bought that jelly roll, I set out to determine if quilting was something I would enjoy. I learned a lot during this project.

The first thing I learned is that no matter how convenient it is, I can’t actually use a jelly roll again. I usually pre-wash my fabrics because I’m allergic to whatever manufactures use to keep the fabrics stiff and pretty in the stores. When you quilt, you have to do a lot of ironing and steam setting your seams. That, apparently, vapourises the chemical and it’s not good for me at all. I’m not going to lie, cutting out the pieces takes a lot of time and precision that using a pre-cut fabric alleviates. Even though I no longer have the option to use pre-cuts, it’s not something that will stop me from doing this again. I like the flexibility of being able to cut out what I want in the sizes I want as well.

The second thing I learned is that the process of actually making the quilting stitches is really, really, really boring, and at times quite frustrating. It also goes a bit more slowly than I initially anticipated. Since this particular quilt is so thin, I didn’t bother with a walking foot or anything special. I just used what I already had. There is a bit of puckering on the back, but I think that’s because I didn’t baste the quilt together very well. I will be sure to take the extra time to baste my top, batting, and backing together for the next quilt.

The last thing I learned is that I really enjoyed the actual binding process! I attached it half by machine and half by hand. Honestly, my favourite part of the entire process was hand stitching the binding in place. I was so sad when I finished because there wasn’t anything left to hand stitch. Enjoying the hand stitching has also encouraged me to work on my hand stitching skills, and my goal in the (distant) future is to complete the actual quilting process by hand. Even though it will take MUCH longer to finish a quilt if I’m doing the quilting by hand, I think I will enjoy it a lot more.

Overall, I absolutely love this type of sewing, and will absolutely do it again. In fact, I have another quilt that I’m working on right now. I have given myself a few more weeks to get it done and will feature it here.