Jelly Roll Railway!

Today's post is so much fun!

You're going to love this new shortcut pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop! It's quick, and it's a great way to use a beloved jelly roll, or scraps from your stash! (You will soon see that I did both!)

Here is the photo from the Fat Quarter Shop pattern:

Isn't it cute?

Step one is to choose a jelly roll . . . maybe you are like me, and you'd been saving, er, hoarding one that you particularly like -- get it out and use it! And if you don't have one you'd like to use, head right over to our buddies at the Fat Quarter Shop and pick one out!

I had this one from Moda for a long time, waiting for just the right project. It's a cute collection of fabrics called "Sophie."

Just look at all those pretty strips of fabric! So much potential! (You recall studying potential energy in school, right? Just think of the jelly roll as so much potential quiltiness.)

The Jelly Roll Railway instructions were super clear and easy to follow. (I like that, cos I tend to get confoozled easily.)

Here are the strip sets, and the triangles all cut out. I'll be giving you some tips that I hope will be of help to you -- the first one is that I starched all my squares before cutting them into triangles! Those puppies are just a tad stiff, and they'll stay in shape when I stitch 'em up!

See how the triangles go on the ends of the strip sets? Woot! Here is a tip for making that easy-peasy, and having them squarely in the middle of the strip . . . 

I folded each triangle in half and creased it gently. I did the same thing with the strip . . . check out this photo:

Now just line up the creases and stitch in your quarter inch seam!

You can see from the creases that I did the same thing with the larger triangles that you stitch to the long edges of the strip sets, too.  It makes lining things up so easy, and so accurate.

Now, once that is done, you have a block to square up!

The blocks are arranged into the quilt top like so:

When I chose the fabrics for the large triangles (which become the centers of the railway pattern) I chose several low volume fabrics, instead of making all the triangles from the same color... why? Well, for one thing, I like for things to look kinda scrappy. Even on a more modern fabric palette, I prefer to have a scrappy look -- are you starting to understand why a block called "She Did the Best She Could" is one of my favorites? (grin)

So you end up with a quilt that looks like this:

And this:

 (Sorry, I snapped some of these before giving it a good press.)

And this:

Squeeeeee! I love it!

I love it so much I'm going to show you the finished top again!

I have some strips left from the jelly roll, and I'm going to use those for the binding. . . . one more pop of color on the outside edge. (Grin)

This is a great size for a twin bed -- check this out!

I hope you enjoyed this little visit to the Lilypad, and that you will hop over to the Fat Quarter Shop blog to see the other bloggers' versions of this cool shortcut pattern!

The Fat Quarter Shop folks have put together a video for you, too, so I expect there will be a lot of you trying this out -- easy and fun are super words to put in front of the word "quilt." I know, right?

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,