How do I make this work?
 

Ok, my SIL has some clothes that belonged to my MIL wants me to make a memory quilt. I am going to do it jelly roll race style, but instead of 2.5 in strips I was thinking like a 6.5 in finished strip of varying lengths.

if I do this how many inches should I have total? I know a typical jelly roll has 1600 in. So would this be the same?

2.5" strips finish to 2", whereas 6.5" strips finish to 6". Theoretically you should need only one-third of 1600", which would be about 533". However, I'm not sure the quilt will look right with such wide strips because there won't be as many color changes over the length. Maybe someone could make a mock-up with 6" strips in EQ7 and post it here.

My mind's eye doesn't like the jelly roll quilt with the wide stripes. If you don't want to do the narrower strips, how about cutting out squares and fitting them together in a quilt? I'd go on multiples of 3, and I just finished a quilt like that and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do. Of course, you also have to add seam allowances, so that 3" would actually be 3 1/2". But for example, I used blocks that were: 3"X 8", 12" X 12", 9" X 6", 9" X 15". 6" X 6", etc. etc. Those are without seam allowances, don't forget. Then I laid out the quilt until I was satisfied with the arrangement of all of these multi-sized blocks and their surrounding colors. I did have to fill in a few spots with a 3" X 4" pieces I had to make up, plus other, similar, small blocks, in order to make it work. I had to design the quilt on graph paper before I could do it. But it turned out brilliantly! I loved all the different sizes versus doing something like putting together strings of 4" blocks. Anyway, it's a thought.

Leah Day has a neat quilt that uses strips http://www.leahday.com/shop/product/...quilt-pattern/

The Shadowbox pattern could be a great way to showcase all the fabrics. http://www.robertkaufman.com/quiltin...rns/shadowbox/

Another source for Shadowbox http://store.virginiaquilter.com/sto...3&Item_ID=1940

I agree that a 6.5" jelly roll race quilt is not the best way to go. (It would be fast, but I don't think anyone would be happy with the result.)

Rather, I encourage you to google "memory quilt ideas". I found there many good ideas for simple quilts that look much better!