1600 Jellyroll quilt top

1600 Jellyroll quilt top

I always like to do something different so when one of the vendors at our Quilt Guild's quilt show in June, told me about an easy quilt top that you can make using 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric, I decided to give it a try.  It is called a 1600 Jelly Roll quilt as the strip of fabric that you use at the start is 1600 inches long! (Yup!) 

I bought a package of Northcott Stonehenge 2 1/2 inch fabric strips from that same vendor and started my Jelly Roll quilt top a few days later.

It's quite easy to do: You start off by taking all 40 of your  2 1/2 inch strips and sewing them together end to end. (You can sew them together straight across or diagonally like you would to make fabric strips for binging). Cut  about 15-16 inches off the first strip of fabric (don't use it) and then just randomly sew all the rest of fabric strips together.  (That helps to stagger the fabric joints a bit better in the quilt top.)

Take that big long strip of fabric, fold it right sides together (being very careful not to twist it), then sew that  together along one side. When you get close to the end, cut the loop of fabric there, then sew to the end. (In essence you have created 2 strips of fabric out of the long one which you've now sewn together.)

Do the same thing again, fold the 2 ends right sides together and then sew along one side, clipping the loop at the end.  Now you have 4 strips of fabric sewn together like in the photo below. 

Your length of fabric is reduced in half each step of the way. 

Fold the 4 strip fabric in half again, right sides together, sewing along one side. Now you have 8 strips sewn together Like the photo below.

8 strips of fabric sewn together

 Do the same thing again, then you will have 16 strips of fabric sewn together.

16 strips of fabric sewn together

Now do that same step one last time and you will have a quilt top with 32 half inch strips of fabric sewn together creating  a quill;t top that is 50 inches across and 65 inches long.

Each time you sew sides together your fabric strips will double but the length will shrink in half:

1 fabric strip = 1600 inches long

2 strips= 800 inches long

4 strips = 400 inches long

8 strips = 200 inches long

16 strips = 100 inches

32 strips = 50 inches 

resulting in a quilt top 50" by 65"

After that I bought some more Stonehenge fabric and cut 2 1/2 inch strips to make a border around my 1600 jelly roll top.  Next I cut 5 1/2 inch strips of another Northcott Stonehenge Spring Meadow fabric to make an outer border. I love the birds on that one! I really like the Northcott Stonehenge fabric line, especially the Spring meadow line. 

1600 Jellyroll quilt with 2 inch inner border and 5 1/4 inch outer border

The quilt top is now 65" inches wide and 80 1/2" inches long.  Thought that would make a nice size quilt to put on the couch or throw across the bottom of the spare bed.

I am going to look into getting some "Fireside", a soft type of fleece, for the back.  Not sure how hard it will be to quilt with, but I'm not quilting anything fancy, just a wave across the centre of each strip . Haven't decided yet how I will quilt the outer bird border...


I did some calculating and figured out how to make a baby quilt top using the same method:
If you were to sew 700 inches of 2 1/2 inch strips together, using the same method as the 1600 jelly Roll, you would end up with a quilt top with 16 fabric strips measuring 43 1/2 " by 32" inches.

Or take 600 inches of strips, keep sewing the sides together till it measures 37 1/2" by 32". If you added a 2 inch border around it,  it would end up measuring 41 1/2 " by 36", an adequate size for a baby quilt…

Might just give that a try! :)
Happy quilting!

One of our "little monkeys"