Jelly Roll Scraps

Jelly Roll Scraps are blocks made from leftover 2.5" strips. I tend to group scraps by color, and also have a small stack of 2.5" strips that are full width of fabric. Pulling one busy yellow paisley fabric with pink, green, orange and white in it gave me a color palette. In a scrappy quilt the more the merrier, and there were several pinks and yellows that gave some pop. Soft greens fit too, and a cream with a sage green print gave some light to the mix.

Block layout step 1

Initially planning on 16 10" blocks for a small charity quilt, I stacked up 16 piles of strips to spread out the colors. Each stack was sewn end-to-end with a straight seam, pressed then cut into 10.5" strips. Rather than trying to sew sets of 5 strips together, I started with 4 strips, sewed the pairs, then each pair together, and pulled a 5th strip. When chain piecing it's much easier with even numbers.

There were enough for 20 blocks. After pressing the blocks it was apparent that some of my strips had not been a full 2.5" wide, so the blocks were trimmed down to 10.25" so they were square. Every other block was rotated in the layout to give a bit of a woven effect.

Jelly Roll Scraps top ready to quilt

This was another fun and satisfying project. It's great to work on casual, fun sewing. Pink flannel is ready for the backing, and it will probably be quilted with a butterfly pattern.

I've pulled fabrics already for a small chair cover for the living room with this block, using up a collection of brown, blue and red homey fabrics.