Friday, August 11, 2017

Racing Rails {Moda Bake Shop Pattern}

Hooray! I am so excited to finally be able to share this quilt with all of you. This is my newest project for Moda Bake Shop -- Racing Rails!


While at first glance this might just seem like a run of the mill rail fence quilt -- it most certainly is not! After watching a few different "jelly roll race" tutorials, I thought to myself, "why can't you use this same technique to make strip sets for strip pieced blocks?" I put pen to paper and after quite a bit of quilt math, Racing Rails was born!

You can check out the full tutorial on Moda Bake shop (including lots of tips and tricks from what I learned making the quilt), but I wanted to share the basics here as well.

Using all of the strips from a jelly roll, I made a four strip wide set using a slightly modified version of the jelly roll race technique. The strip set was over 32 feet long! I then cut the strip into the 36 - 8.5" blocks for the quilt as well as 27 - 2.5" x 8.5" strips for the pieced border.



The quilt top has three borders - a small border, the pieced border, and a wide border. I used the same light floral print for the small and large borders.


I used one of the plaid prints for the backing and binding and used a meander with little five-petaled flowers as the quilting motif.



The best part about this pattern is that there was almost nothing left over from the jelly roll! Between the blocks and pieced border, I really made sure to maximize what you could get out of the strips.


I also had a lot of fun taking this quilt to the pond nearby for pictures! It was a little windy, but I managed to make sure it didn't get blown into the water!






Visit MBS for the full tutorial! I'm taking suggestions for what other sorts of quilt blocks could be done with this technique, so send me your ideas!

Sharing at TGIFFFinished or Not Friday, Needle and Thread Thursday, and Finish it up Friday!

17 comments:

  1. That's genius! I love the concept behind jelly roll races but never really caught onto the craze. Love your pics, especially those gazebo shots. Wow! Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great idea behind the quilt, Alison! Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Alison,
    What a pretty quilt! I love using a WHOLE jelly roll when making a quilt. Otherwise I have a few strips leftover . . . and they go into the drawer, never to be thought of again until I can't shut the drawer. I will check out MBS for all the details. ~smile~ Roseanne

    ReplyDelete
  4. Such a great idea. I too love the idea of jelly roll races but never got into it. I just found a stash of fabric from a few years ago that I didn't know I had (blushes) and there were 3 jelly rolls in it. I have to keep this in mind.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well isn't that clever! And I really like the border treatment you added. It looks great. Thanks for sharing with TGIFF.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congratulations! What an adorable (and easy) quilt!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm impressed that you could make strip sets that long without them going wonky. You've given people with unused jelly rolls another option.
    Pat

    ReplyDelete
  8. A lovely way to use a jellyroll! I love your colour combo with this quilt, with the little 'pops' of plaid too!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I made two jelly roll race quilts, and didn't like the final outcome of either. After reading your tutorial, I can see that I do have more jelly roll quilts in my future! Great photography, too, by the way!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congrats! on a AWESOME finish, Alison. Super photo shoot, too!!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Love this. I saved your tutorial at MBS.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Love the colors in this quilt. You do beautiful work. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Congrats on another beautiful MBS design!

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm so glad you wrote about your new pattern here on the blog! Now I'm intrigued to see how you did it and will head over to the Bake Shop to read the entire pattern. Congrats on being published :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Your new MBS pattern is perfect for an old jelly roll that I have on hand. It's perfect timing for National Jelly Roll Day on September 16th!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Love this! May need to use this pattern for Jelly Roll Quilt day in September.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting! I try to respond to all comments and if I am not responding to you, your settings probably prevent me from responding to you via email -- meaning, that you are a no-reply blogger. Please check your settings so that I can properly respond to you!