Urgent Gift: Garden Trellis Jelly Roll Quilt

Can I do it?

A good friend turns 40 on Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, and she has a birthday extravaganza planned for Jan 2, which we have been looking forward to attending for some time. These friends would rather receive a donation to a charity than a physical gift as, like so many of us who are grown up, they already have the most of the things they need for their home. They’re also sensible enough to appreciate that recycled clothes and baby gear will do just fine for their precious young sons.

A bought gift just wouldn’t be right, but a quilted gift just might be. I’ve decided to have a go at making the Garden Trellis quilt from Pam & Nicky Lintott’s Jelly Roll Quilts book which I posted about a while back. They say it’s a quick and easy choice if you need a speedy present for a special friend.

We’ll see how that goes.

I have a Hoffman Fabrics Bali Pops jelly roll in Cappucino, which has very contrasty batik blacks, browns and creams. It was part of my most recent Hancocks order which I had to keep adding to, in order to qualify for ‘free’ shipping overseas.

Light Coloured Bali Pops on the Drying Rack

I was concerned the colours might bleed as that has been my experience with batik sarongs, so asked the question at the Quilting Board. Some quilters reported no problems at all and others reported bleeding. The safe option seemed to be to prewash in mesh bags and hope they wouldn’t fray too much. My front loader is quite a lot more gentle (and I must say more effective) than my old agitator washing machine ever was and two loads later (one lights, one darks, in with the family laundry in both cases) I was ready to go.

Last night I started sewing the strips together that’s going quickly. Sadly though I don’t have the quarter square triangle ruler I’m going to need to cut the blocks so now I have to make an urgent trip to Spotlight. Not happy about that.

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