It's Fall! Continued Jelly Roll Work

The newness of a project never fails to maintain my focus. You would have thought that the Kaffe project I was working on would still be considered "new," however, when the idea of jelly roll sewing took hold, I was off on a tangent just like that.

I made the first four blocks - two red, two neutral - and stopped to assess the viability of continuing. After determining that continuing would be worthwhile, I knew that it would be smart to figure out the best way to chain-piece.

Here is a quick summation of the process I have devised. Start with a 4-patch of 2.5" squares. You can arrive at this in a couple of ways, each as good as the other.

Next, you will need (2) 4.5" strips and (1) 2.5" square. After those are attached, you add (2) 6.5" strips and another (1) 2.5" square. The block below is a neutral block with red chain. I added the strips to the same 2 sides, which results in the 4-patch being in the corner of the block.

I toyed with the idea that the 4-patch should be in the middle of the block. I really don't think it matters. I do think, though, that whatever you choose to do, all the blocks should be the same. Here's a block with the centered 4-patch.

Either way, you will still get the same chain diagonally through the center, which ultimately, is what you want.

Here is a picture of all the blocks I have made so far. Yes, the centered 4-patches are sprinkled in here, and it is not at all obvious. I will likely just leave them as is and make all the remaining blocks consistently with the corner 4-patches.

I have no idea how many more blocks I will be able to make. To prevent running out of jelly roll, I make 6 at a time - 6 red blocks, 6 neutral blocks and so on, so that I keep things even. As I near the last of the jelly roll fabrics, I will decide on a good stopping point. I don't believe I have any yardage of this line (La Vie en Rouge), but I do have yardage of other French General lines, and since all their lines coordinate really well, I could fill in gaps. As is so often my strategy, "we'll see what we have when we get there."

Happy Monday, Peeps!
Happy Quilting, too!