Jelly Roll Race with Thrifted Batiks

 Back in June, I stopped at a local thrift store I hadn't visited in a while.  I can't remember now if I had something in mind to look for; maybe it was junk journal ideas or supplies.  Whatever the reason (and there doesn't need to be much of one for me to go), I made my usual pass through the sewing and crafting aisles and spied a couple bags of fabric.  They were both sealed and taped, but I could see they were stuffed with batik fabric, including what looked like a good chunk of a jelly roll.  For around three dollars total, it was a no-brainer.  Into the cart they went!

When I got home and opened the bags, OH MY GOODNESS!  There was at least 5 or 6 yards of batik fabric, from scraps to fat quarter size to half-yard cuts and half a jelly roll.  On top of that, there were 10 meticulously pieced 8.5-inch blocks and multiple strip sets sewn together.  Wow!

A couple weeks ago, I decided it was time to do something with those batiks.  The starting point, I thought, would be to utilize the remaining jelly roll strips, and then I'd cut additional strips from the other pieces to make something.  But what, exactly?  I started looking around for inspiration and soon found a video for a jelly roll race quilt with a twist (free downloadable pattern HERE).  Perfect!

I know the jelly roll race quilt has been around for a long, long time, but I'd never made one.  This particular idea had a little three-piece section inserted at the end of each strip, which supposedly would make an interesting secondary pattern due to the way those would fall when piecing it.  Okay, cool!

But here is where I tell you there was more fiddling involved than you might imagine.  Now this is probably, in part, because the extra batik strips I cut were perhaps not the exact same length as the ones in the jelly roll.  Some may have been a bit longer, some a bit shorter by a couple inches.  Hence the fiddling.  Also, by the time I got all the strips sewn together vertically, the right side was a full one inch longer than the left side, so there was a bit more fiddling and trimming to even it up.  I also removed a strip that didn't look right among the rest of them and replaced it with another.

For the backing, I went rooting around in the sewing room and found one I had pieced a few years ago but didn't use.  It had a section in the middle pieced from hand-dyed fabric scraps, but they were too dark for this quilt.  I ripped that section out, rejiggered the other large pieces from the original backing, and then sewed in a replacement section using some of those batik strip sets from the thrift store bag, as well as scraps from the jelly roll race quilt.

After quilting, this was the final result.  I'm happy with it!

And here's the back.

The scrappy binding is from three different purple batiks that seemed to play well together.

I don't normally wash finished quilts right away, but I am going to with this one since I didn't prewash all the bits and pieces from the thrift store.  I'll throw in a couple of color catchers, cross my fingers, and hope those deeply saturated batiks don't bleed too badly.  I also used a different brand of 80/20 batting than I normally do (Pellon), which quilted beautifully but seemed to have a stiffer hand.  Hopefully washing will soften that up bit too.

I still have quite a bit of pieces left over, so I'm sure there will be another scrappy something or other from those batik goody bags in the future.

~Paulette

String Diamonds

Currently in the works is a string diamonds quilt based on the "Diamonds Are Forever" pattern from the book String Quilt Revival by Virginia Baker and Barbara Sanders.

I've had the book for a few years, and the instructions call for using a stabilizer called Sheer Delite to sew the string blocks onto.  It doesn't get removed, just becomes part of the quilt.

Well, try to find that stuff now.  After spending (too much) time searching the internet, it seems to me they may not make it anymore.  Or maybe it's sold under a different name.

So I figured I'd just use my trusty, old faithful phone book pages as foundations.  I have to remove the papers, of course, but I'm no stranger to that process and don't mind doing it.  It's a good thing to do while listening to an audiobook.  I just finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho through my local library, using the RB Digital app.

In searching for information on the stabilizer for the quilt, I happened upon a YouTube video tutorial by Tea Quilts. She was also using paper foundations to piece her "Diamonds Are Forever" quilt.  Excellent tutorial, by the way, and she includes instructions to make the kite-shaped template in the description box below the video (click on "Show More" to expand the box).

I use a diagonal line of Elmer's washable glue stick to secure the kite shaped piece to the diagonal of the paper, then just line up my strings along the straight edge and sew away.  No pinning required.  I work on about four blocks at a time, chain piecing them through the machine.  It hasn't been a problem to remove the paper where the glue was.  Even after pressing the block, the glue releases cleanly and there's no problem with tackiness on the fabric.

At first I was going to use black for the background fabric, i.e. the fabric you cut the kite-shaped pieces out of.  But after I made a few sample blocks, I wasn't in love with that color scheme.  Nothing else in the quilting fabric stash really grabbed my attention, but luckily I spotted a big piece of teal colored linen-like fabric that I'd bought to make a dress.  Well, the dress never happened and wasn't going to happen, so I tried making a few string blocks with the teal fabric and loved it!

I think it's cotton (or mostly, anyway).  I remember buying it at JOANN years ago from among the garment fabric bolts.  The weave is somewhat coarser in texture, but it drapes and presses well.  It seems to be doing very nicely in this quilt.

Man, there are some weird, wild, and wonderful fabrics in this baby!  I'm just grabbing from the scraps and strings buckets and bins as I go, trying not to overthink anything.  It's pretty amazing how little of a dent I've made in the strings so far.  Hopefully by the time I get done, I'll notice a reduction.

I've also prewashed and pressed fabric for another quilt that I need to get started on soon.  A whole lot of batik fat quarters here.  This quilt will need to be ready to gift in several weeks' time, so I may have to interrupt the string diamonds quilt to work on that.

I'm probably not going to be able to reveal much more about the batik project while I'm working on it in case the giftee reads this blog.  But I'll be sure to take lots of pictures that I can show after it's all done and delivered!