Camille Roskelley's Patchwork Sky Pattern / Beauties Pageant 267

Years ago, my mom got me a fat quarter bundle of Nova, by Basic Grey, for my birthday. I bought some yardage to go along with it and slowly started chipping away at the mountain of prints in teal, rose, and navy. The first project I completed with Nova was Irish Twist, my own take on a traditional Irish chain quilt ...

Then I cut two additional throw-size quilts: Basic Grey’s Stolen Kisses and Camille Roskelley’s Patchwork Sky. The first one is not pieced at all (like, not even a little bit). The second quilt, however, is this week’s finish ...

Patchwork Sky checks so many boxes for me. I love the big, bold stars that seem to fall off the edges of the quilt and the swaths of 2-inch (finished) squares. The pattern instructions call for a jelly roll and a strip-piecing technique to assemble the 16 patches that fall between the stars. Because I had fat quarters, yardage, and scraps, I cut my own 2.5-inch strips and squares. I am a sucker for quilty math, so I was happy to play with my calculator if it meant busting through all that fabric. 

My first Nova project went directly to the longarmer for a swirly pantograph treatment. I thought Patchwork Sky, on the other hand, would benefit from the straight-line quilting I could accomplish on my own. Those straight lines, I think, make the quilt that much more modern.

You know I love a good jelly roll pattern, and Patchwork Sky is one I may revisit in the future. : )

 

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Pageant Highlight Reel / Beauties Pageant 266

I decided this week it was time to tally the WIPs, and friends, the numbers were sobering. I have 10 projects in process and another 4 cut and ready to sew. A total of 14 might not seem like a big number to you, but many more would overwhelm me. Until I can chisel away at them, any new projects need to be ones I’d sew start to finish right now, like a QuiltCon 2025 submission or a new pattern.

But that doesn’t stop me from daydreaming about what might come next, and recent Beauties Pageants have provided more than enough inspiration ...

Orinoco Flow

Sandra’s Orinoco Flow is a throw-size version of a baby quilt pattern of hers that was published in Love Patchwork and Quilting last year. I have a soft spot in my heart for whole-composition designs, and Orinoco Flow does not disappoint ... It looks exactly like the original baby size; Sandra achieves the throw size by enlarging the components, not by adding more blocks. And by the looks of it, Orinoco Flow will come together quickly!

Blue Pineapple Blocks

Gretchen’s collection of blue pineapple blocks is a showstopper, and think of all the scraps she busted through to make 64 blocks! I have never sewn a pineapple block quilt (the time commitment is daunting), but these blocks think I may need to tackle one.

Garden Party

Although neither my blog nor Instagram feed show any evidence of this, I have been playing with applique recently. It’s been fun to consider the possibilities of what I can accomplish outside of my usual piecing techniques. Gail’s Garden Party project uses a pattern by Laura Heine and an applique approach called “edge painting.” Once you open yourself up to applique, the possibilities of what you can create are limitless ...

I know many of you are like me and enjoy having multiple projects going at once. How may projects are too many for you? Which of these designs are tempting you, too?!

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• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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National Sew a Jelly Roll Day 2024 / Beauties Pageant 265

Attention fans of precuts! Tomorrow is the third Saturday of September, and you know what that means: It’s National Sew a Jelly Roll Day. (For real. Check out Moda’s post about the yearly event, including free patterns, here!)

I consider myself a jelly roll ninja. As a stash curator, jelly rolls are my sweet spot, giving me a cross-section of a fabric collection at a great price point. As a pattern designer, jelly rolls can do things that layer cakes and fat quarter bundles can’t. I love the challenge of working with those 2.5-inch strips to come up with new and innovative quilt designs. In fact, I enjoy working with jelly rolls so much that I designed 14 patterns to include in my first book—Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts—which will be published by C&T next year.

But my Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt pattern is one that you can get your hands on today for satisfying jelly roll sewing tomorrow. Plus, it’s one of my Almost Free for Charity patterns, which means I will donate part of the proceeds from each $3 pattern to an organization that supports the Down syndrome community. (I talk about my own kiddo with DS in this post.)

So, are you game to bust open a lovely roll of strips and get going? Here are a few things to know about the Still Pretty Simple Jelly Roll Quilt:

* This pattern requires just 32 jelly roll strips and 1.75 yards of background fabric to make a 56.5" x 64.5" throw-size project.

* The 16 elongated log cabin blocks you’ll make can be configured in a bunch of different ways. As you can see from the accompanying pictures, I’ve arranged mine to be large arrows, a huge X, and a big star. (Other suggestions are illustrated here.)

* I can’t say this about all jelly roll patterns, but you can use strips cut from fat quarters to sew this design. Two 2.5" x 20" strips cut from a fat quarter equal one jelly roll strip. You’ll need 32 pairs of strips—that is, 64 in total—to sew this pattern.

Need your own copy of the pattern? Pick it up for $3 in my Etsy shop!

I am always (always!) on the lookout for clever and creative jelly roll patterns. Even if you’re not celebrating National Sew a Jelly Roll Day with a project this year, I would love to hear your suggestions. : )

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter