Zen Studio Quilt Along - Week 1

by Michelle Schneider February 11, 2019

Starts Today!! 2/11/19

Zen Studio Quilt Along

Dates: February 11^th, 2019 – March 31^st, 2019
Duration: 7 weeks
Quilt Size Featured: Lap – 41” x 57”
Instagram Tag: #zenstudioqal

ZEN STUDIO QUILT ALONG

WEEK ONE: FABRIC SORTING, CUTTING, AND ORGANIZING

The two hardest steps in creating this quilt is color planning and keeping the pieces in the correct order. We will go over both items thoroughly. So, breathe, relax, and follow along.

Moonrise Jelly Roll - Cotton+Steel

So, if you haven’t already, open up your Jelly Roll and unfurl that beauty! If you’ve never opened a Jelly Roll before, you might not be expecting the “confetti” effect that ensues once you’ve opened the package. It’s a little messy but just pretend it’s a fabric party and you just arrived at the main event. You’ll also notice that the edges have been pinked (jagged cut). This keeps the fabric from fraying and we’ll talk a little more about that next week.

Now that you’ve opened your Jelly Roll, and have finished ogling and fondling it, let’s get down to business

SORTING

Sorting your jelly roll might feel a little overwhelming, so let’s break it down into smaller steps. Most Jelly Rolls have multiples of the same prints and colors and/or variants of a few different colors.

First, lay out your strips and combine the identical strips. Then combine like colors into groups. This Moonrise Jelly Roll had about 6 color groups and some single strip prints. You'll notice that the color groups are not exactly the same color and/or the color is the background for one print and the foreground for the other. Jelly Rolls are scrappy in nature and you'll need to keep in mind that this is foremost a scrappy quilt that we are imposing some structure to. (If this is not your thing, you might want to consider using your own yardage selection, but I would suggest you hang in there and give the Jelly Roll a whirl.)

Now that you've got your color groups, you'll want to select four groups that contrast each other the most. I chose the orange, purple, blue, and gray. My original choice was to keep the pink and purple, but I didn't feel there was enough contrast between the two colors, so I put the pink in the "later" pile.

(note that the purples and grays are not exactly the same and the orange has a reverse color schematic)

You'll also want to think abouit your inner borders when selecting your color groups. Keep in mind how many strips you'll need for your borders and select those now. The Inner border strips should be very close if not the same color.

(I chose these two prints for the inner border. I'll use one for the sides and one for the top and bottom)

The rest of the strips will either be used for the outer border, or as some back up if the cutting is off for the blocks (mistakes!?!, we don't make no flipping mistakes! LOL)

CUTTING

Alright, now that we've gotten over our "these strips don't match" anxiety, let's get onto the "how am I gonna cut this" apprehension. So, let's breathe, shake it off, and tackle this.

Honestly, the cutting is not that difficult and, like I stated previously, you should have some back up strips. Remember, this is somewhat scrappy, so you won't have exactly the same amount of each print for all the pieces. Only work with one color group at a time and take into account the number of pieces for each size piece (refer to pattern sub-cut section)

I personally (when making the lap size) stack all the strips of one color group on top of each other and cut the largest piece first. I removed and replaced strips to the stacked group as needed to the achieve the desired number of pieces for each size, moving from largest to smallest sized pieces. If a strip wasn't long enough to cut for a certain size, I moved it aside to use for the next largest size piece that would fit.

If you're not comfortable stacking strips to cut, just cut one size piece at a time, changing up the print as desired. Same rules apply in regards to cutting larger pieces first and moving down to second largest, and so on.

Aaaannnd, if you're still apprehensive about the cutting, I've added a cutting diagram to the pattern. You can download another copy and print just that page. After working with a couple people on the pattern, I found this part the most stressful for them, and it was the one thing I didn't include. I can't have you being stressed, so I thought I'd ease everyone's mind. :) Instructions to get the new pattern updated are at beginning of this post.

WRAP IT UP

Alright, that's all we have scheduled for this week. Keep your color groups organized and separated. Next week we'll discuss building your blocks and start piecing!! If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below!

Be sure to check out your emails for this week's contest rules!! And don't forget to share, share, share!! Share those pics and tag them #zenstudioqal.