National Jelly Roll Day Fun

When we scheduled our challenge sew date a long time ago, we didn't know it would fall on National Jelly Roll Day. What a happy coincidence!

I love sewing with family and friends and we've not had much opportunity to do that recently. Last year (Yikes! I can't believe it has been that long ago.), six of us decided that we wanted to do some sort of challenge together. We discussed some options and finally made a decision. (That appears to have been the easy part, as it took a lot of time, checking schedules, etc. to finally come up with a date that worked for all of us.) 

It finally happened and everyone showed up at my house tonight to get started. So what is the challenge? We chose a pattern and agreed that we'd each bring the fabric we want to use for it. Everyone got the pattern and had the opportunity to read it, review it, and pull fabric. We opted to make the Twin size quilt, because it's 2 1/2" strip friendly and we thought that would make it easier to actually get the quilt completed in one weekend. (You know that there will other things besides sewing going on, right? Laughter, eating, drinking, etc.) 

But, here's the kicker. Instead of working on our own quilt, we've randomly pull names and have to make someone else's quilt for them. Sounds easy enough, right? The first hurdle was to pick names without getting our own. After the first round of picking and a couple people getting their own names, we asked Jack picked the names for us. No one got their own names, but instead of it being random, a pattern emerged.

Kare is making Connie's quilt and Connie is making Kare's.

Annie is making Jeffry's quilt and Jeffry is making Annie's.

Jerry is making my quilt and I'm making Jerry's.

We exchanged fabric and visited for a while before Kare had to go home. It was getting late, but we started messing around with the fabrics and before we knew it, we were plotting out quilts. Here's a few pictures of fabrics that have been brought and some initial ideas.

Here's what Connie is using for Kare's quilt. These are the colors of the local school and Kare says the quilt will probably end up with one of her grandkids. The picture is kind of bad because it was really late and the lighting is not great. Kare brought a variety of orange and blue fabrics, as well a white. 

I think Kare might have taken Connie's fabric home because I didn't see it here and I really didn't want to snoop through bags. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Annie was trying to hide her plan from all of us, or at least from Jeffry.

I sneaked and picked up the cover fabric while no one was looking. I love those fabrics! This is going to be fun.  :-)

Jeffry has a plan for Annie's fabric, but he's not going to give it up until he starts sewing. Annie has used this fabric for a couple of other projects, including a tuffet and two other quilts. It's so bright and cheery and fits Annie's personality perfectly!

Do you see the paper underneath the strips? I enlarged a sketch from the pattern so we could all use it as a mock up and try out different lay out options. 

Jerry brought a bunch of black and white batiks and solid black and white fabrics that he got a Lunn Fabrics recently. They are gorgeous! (I really need to make a road trip to that shop!) Jerry also brought some gorgeous Kaffe Fassett fabric, and I've been playing around with adding a few of my own fabrics to the mix. I've done some sketching and am also thinking about making a slight design change to the pattern. 

I pulled a variety of strips that were left over from a couple of projects, but the majority of the strips are from Olive's Flower Market. I threw in some other fabrics and I'm really looking forward to see what Jerry creates. (Actually, I'm really the most excited to be using some of these orphaned strips!)

This is going to be fun!

I'll update our progress with pictures throughout the day.

Are you having the opportunity to sew this weekend?

I sure hope so!