One really great advantage of jelly rolls is the variety of matching colors. The maker does all the work for you of finding 40 different colors. It makes my head hurt just thinking about chosing 40 colors. That is is you can find 40 colors with out driving all over the area!( but what fun that would be). I used a jelly roll of brights pinks/green and would never have thought of putting all those colors/patterns together (if I could have found them). .Alos consider cost. I feel bad asking for 1/4yr cut but even that may be too much for making some type of strip quilt. Jelly rolls are very cost effective!