To The Point: A Quick n’ Easy Jelly Quilt Tutorial

Good morning friends! Today I want to share about a couple of fun baby quilt gifts I stitched up this month. Just 1 jelly roll and a couple of yards of white gave me 2 nice sized quilts- each 51″ square! These are VERY quick, with minimal cutting, and are just perfect for a beginner, or any quilter who just wants to “get to the point” and stitch up some fast n’ easy gift or donation quilts.

OK! So let’s get down to brass tax! To make 2 of these quilts (or a larger throw size), you’ll need:

1 jelly roll consisting of 42 strips 2.5″ X width of fabric, and 2 5/8 yard of white (or whatever background solid you choose)

Now my jelly roll had exactly 42 strips in it, but I noticed that some of my other rolls had less- some only 40. Easy fix for this though- if the jelly roll you want to use has less than 42 strips, simply cut the remaining strips needed from matching yardage- it could be from the same line, or even a solid or another print that blends with the rest of the fabrics in your roll.

Next, stitch your strips together, lengthwise, into groups of 3s, and press. I pressed my seams facing outward, but it makes no difference which direction the seams are facing for this quilt (so to either side, or open, however you prefer). You should have 14 strip sets.

Now, trim off the selvage edges from one end of the strip set.

Cut the set into 6.5″ units (your set should be 6.5″ wide, so this will give you perfect squares). You can get 6 squares from each strip set.

Next, you’ll need to cut 14 strips from your solid yardage, 6.5″ X width of fabric. Sub-cut these strips into 81 squares 6.5″. Using a ruler and a pencil, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner on the wrong side of all of the background squares (if your solid fabric doesn’t appear to have a right or wrong side, then either side will work. I can never tell with my solids!).

Now, it’s just a matter of giving these blocks the ol’ half square triangle treatment! Pair each strip block with a background block, right sides together, and with the drawn line facing up. Add a couple of pins along the drawn line. Now stitch a 1/4″ seam on both sides of the line, then cut the units in half along the drawn line using a rotary cutter (this is the part where I insert my handy dandy illustration, because I was on such a roll, I ended up getting these blocks made up in the evening when it was too dark to take a decent photo!).

**NOTE: Keep in mind that when you align your background square on top of your strip pieced square, your diagonal line could be facing one of two directions relative to the direction of the strips. I wanted a really scrappy, patchy looking quilt, so I went out of my way to keep the direction of the strips totally random when I pinned and stitched my blocks.

**TIP: Keep up a speedy pace by chain stitching these (ie, running them through your machine one after then next, without clipping the threads in between). Once you get through stitching the seams one one side of the line (on all of your pairs), don’t clip them apart yet- simply run them through the machine again for the second seam, and the pieces will practically feed themselves up to the needle!

Press the blocks open. You should have 162 of them (enough to make 2 baby quilts!)

Your blocks should measure 6 1/8″ at this point, but to be honest, if yours are a little smaller or a little bigger than this (perhaps due to your seam allowance being slightly larger or smaller than a true 1/4″), it doesn’t matter in the slightest for this quilt! As long as all of your block are the same size as one another, you’ve got the makings for a great looking quilt. I was happy with the size and squareness of my blocks, so I did not trim them down (as I sometimes do on more fussy designs), but feel free to trim them to 6″ if you like.

All that’s left to do is stitch the blocks together into rows, and then join the rows! My quilts both consist of 9 blocks X 9 blocks, with all of the triangles facing the same way (I love this clean, simplified look), BUT I had so much fun playing around with all of the other design possibilities for these patchy points! You could also forgo the second quilt and just make a single larger quilt, using the same 162 blocks in whatever dimensions you prefer.

Whatever design you choose, don’t forget to finish it off with a custom label!