strip quilt | Missouri Star Blog

The town square is a gathering place. Here in Hamilton, we get together at Thanksgiving time to light up the Christmas display and welcome Santa Claus to town. During the summer we enjoy movies under the stars. And every September we invite the whole world to join us for our annual Birthday Bash and JC Penney Days celebration. These traditions bring us together as a community; we become friends as well as neighbors. Of course, we always bring a quilt or two for coziness!

Today Jenny is working on the Town Square quilt. This is a quick, easy pattern that is perfect for neighborhood adventures. Click HERE to watch the tutorial!

Click HERE for a free printable PDF of this quilt to have easy access to your supplies list.

Hi there. I am Becky Vandenberg from Be So Crafty, a blog devoted to all things sewing. Be So Crafty began last year when I wanted to use my fabric stash for a good cause, so I decided to sew 100 skirts in 100 days and donate them to a local charity that helps refugees in Utah. Sewing skirts everyday for 100 days was a fabulous experience that I plan to write about soon. Although I have been sewing for years, I only began making quilts abouts 3 years ago and LOVE it. So I was absolutely thrilled to be apart of this Tutorial Reboot series for Missouri Star. The quilt tutorial I have decided to reboot is Jenny’s Jelly Roll Race because it’s quick and simple and perfectly color coordinated, thanks to the use of precut jelly rolls.

I chose a KONA jelly roll with solid colors called Overcast by Robert Kauffman. It’s a beautiful palette of blues and greys, perfect for the baby boy quilt I had in mind. I chose a tone-on-tone red dot for the binding and some adorable Cuddle Cloth from Shannon Fabrics for the backing. This airplane design is called “Take Off” licensed from Robert Kaufman.

First I unrolled that perfectly beautiful Jelly Roll and snipped off the selvage.

I followed Jenny’s advice in the video tutorial and kept the fabric strips in order; that means some of the same colors were touching and that is okay.

IMPORTANT NOTE: With solid fabric strips you have to be super mindful of the front of the strip and the back of the strip when you make the jelly roll quilt. “Right sides together” takes on a whole new meaning when there is no printed side. One important thing to remember: after you sew the diagonal line, turn the top strip over and then add the next strip.

With the beginning and end of the 1600” strip, place them right sides together and sew one LONG ¼” stitch making your 1600 inch strip into an 800 inch double side strip; basically fold the long strip in half (end to end) and sew down one side. Cut the fold to create a new “end” of the 800 inch strips and once again, fold the strips in half (end to end) and sew down one side. Cut along the fold and fold the quilt top end to end and sew down one side. Repeat this step a couple more times until you have the finished quilt top.

Follow the Jelly Roll Race video tutorial exactly and you cannot go wrong. That’s all I did.

In order to incorporate the fun airplane backing into the front of the quilt, I grabbed some big scraps from my stash and cut out an airplane applique.

Then I sent the backing and the Jelly Roll Race quilt top to the quilter because I wanted it done all fancy. However, this quilt can easily be quilted with some straight lines or all over stippling with your sewing machine.

To create the binding, I cut eight 2 ½ inch strips from the binding fabric and sewed them together exactly like I sewed the Jelly Roll Race fabric. This made a 240” strip (always make more than you think) which I folded in half and pressed with a hot iron. (Binding tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCWpxBRs20)

Now I get to hand sew the binding. I grabbed some clips, red thread, a sharp needle, and a Diet Coke, and found myself a nice spot on the couch to watch a documentary while binding the quilt.