My college friend and his wife recently had a baby girl, and I had a great time making a baby quilt for them. The idea of a jelly roll quilt was appealing because of the number of fabrics that could easily be included, to give an “I spy” type quality to the quilt top. I used the Jelly Roll Inspirations book, Birthday Gift pattern and started with a Moda jelly roll that included circus theme (for one of the baby’s uncle who is in a circus), music theme (for another of the baby’s uncles who plays cello and piano), and modern bright colors perfect for a Portland couple. Deb at Quilter’s Corner Store helped me pick out the fabric for the back, white tone-on-tone, and yellow/gray polka dots for binding.
Next step was to learn how to piece together the blocks using those 2.5″ jelly roll strips. Friends helped me decide the placement of the blocks to be the most visually appealing and one friend helped me put hundred’s of pins in to hold it in place for quilting.
Since so far, I only feel confident quilting in straight lines, that’s what I did, using a gray thread so it wouldn’t show up. Along the way, I found a “humility or truth block”, one of the white rectangles is sewn inside out, which proves it was done by human hands and indicates good luck for the recipient!
I put on the binding with Lucy’s company during the snow storm of 2014, and presented the quilt in mid-March to Imogen. Hope she and her family enjoy it…I surely enjoyed the creative process of making it for her!
