A makeover

This is quilt #8 in the Second Chance Quilt series. Not only am I borrowing Wedding Dress Blue‘s term for this group of quilts but this time, also her design idea, Film at Five Quilt.

I began with this Jelly Roll Race quilt top from my quilt guild’s de-stash table. I wasn’t crazy about it, and I’m guessing I’m not the only one which is probably why it was there to begin with, but I thought it had potential.

My goal is to never use the words “it’s just for charity” and instead, do the best I can with what I have, no matter where I think the quilt may end up. This quilt was no exception.

I used Deanna’s Wedding Dress Blue Film at Five Quilt free pattern and tutorial to turn the top into the quilt below. This version required half as many blocks and a lot less work since I began with strips already sewn together. 🙂

The finished quilt measures 52″ x 68″ and I quilted it with a traditional clamshell design.

I began by de-constructing the top in sections of 5 strips. Then I cross cut them into 2 1/2′ sections. I chose to cut them by hand rather than struggle to line them up just right for the Go! cutter.

Then came the problem. When I pieced 5 strip sections together to form the block I realized that the seam allowances in the original top had been inconsistent. The resulting blocks measured anywhere from 10″ to 10 1/2″. I had no choice but to trim all the blocks to 10″ squares.

Of course that threw the sashing off. I love that detail in design so I had to make it work!

I used leftover pieces and added a 2 1/2″ square of background to make two pieced units. Normally, I’d have sewn the two pieced units together and then added the last print square. Instead, I opted to sew them in the order you see in the left photo above.

I used a 3/8″ seam allowance on both sides of that print square in the middle losing a total of 4/8″ in the sashing strips (2/8″ on each side). This resulted in the unfinished strips measuring 10″, exactly what I needed. You’ll see a slight difference in the dark blue middle square in the photo on the right. It’s not very noticeable in the 31 sashing units unless you know to look for it. (And, you probably didn’t notice until you scrolled back up to check it out, right?)

I’ve only made one Jelly Roll Race quilt myself. It was this one, for my brother’s birthday in 2020. I used a lot of Thimbleberries fabrics, but I gave it a bit more contemporary style by sewing the fabric strips together on the diagonal. I also cut them into half width-of-fabric pieces to mix up the prints a little more. I still had some fall next to each other in the adjacent row. I hate when that happens so it’s the reason I probably won’t use the race quilt method again.