Jelly Roll Race quilt question
 

Hello... I have been watching the Jelly Roll Race 2 video from MSQC. The one where you sew 2-1/2" squares between each strip.

I am wondering.. I have 1 jelly roll of 40 strips would that be enough to make 2 baby quilts from?

I am not very good with measurements but I figured you guys and gals here would have some idea

40 x 2 = 80" finished; approx 40x40 should be fine for 2 baby quilts not including binding.

If you started a jelly roll race with 20 strips, you would start out with 800 inches, plus spacers, but I'll disregard the spacers because they won't have that much of an effect.

As you sew, you will have a piece measuring 400x4, 200x8, 100x16, 50x32. That size might be appropriate for a baby quilt, but it will actually be a little longer than 50 because of the spacers.

I would rather come up with a quilt that's a little more square, say 40x40. That's the problem with the jelly roll race - you're constricted by the width being a power of 2 (i.e. 2,4,8,32,64...) and the length being a function of dividing the original length by 2 a number of times equal to the power of 2 used for the width.

You also won't get quite the same look if you're trying for two baby quilts, since with a 50 " wide quilt there won't be as many changes in fabric as with the wider quilt you get from using the whole jelly roll.

Isn't there someone, somewhere who did a jelly roll cutting some strips in half, others into thirds......might be able to control size better that way...just a thought.....

Thank you for your thoughts. I do appreciate it

I get what you are saying. Then if I add a 1" stop border and then a 3-1/2" outside border that will make it approx 59" x 41"

I am leaning towards the jelly roll race quilt because my niece wants to help so I wanted to pick a quilt that would be easy and quick.

I will have to think about that. Because like dunster said the fabric changes won't be the same with a smaller quilt. But if the strips were 20" instead of 40"... I wonder what difference that would put in the quilt?????

I just wanted to say thanks for your comments on cutting the strips and how the colors may or may not look the same with a smaller quilt.

That got me thinking so I started searching on the internet and I found this useful tid bit. Talks about baby quilts and making them more "racy" by cutting the strip size Thanks a million!!

http://jellyrollsfabric.com/wp-conte...ng-JR-Race.pdf

Thanks for posting the link with all the sizing info. I will add that the JRR2 (with the squares) is a great beginner's quilt. I just did one last summer with my gr niece. She had very little sewing experience, but the quilt came out really well.

What a neat article! Someone went to a lot of trouble, and put a lot of thought into it.

You can adjust the end dimensions somewhat by adding borders and inserting strips. Here's an example:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/132645151502584202/

I just finished some sorta jelly roll quilts. I had a lot of cat fabric I've collected and done nothing with. So, to preserve the cat images I cut the material into 3" widths x wof. I then cut the strips to different lengths. Then joined the strips on a first pass like a jelly roll quilt. However, I then marked my cutting area for 50" length and cut the one long strip into that size and pretended it was a jelly roll race. The quilts are really cute and the sizes are just what I wanted.
I probably have enough fabric cut to make at least 2 more quilts.