Half Rail Frenzy - Jelly Roll Friendly Quilt Pattern

Hi quilty friends!! It's Mona here and I would like to share a quilt I designed for Moda Bake Shop a while back.

I love working with precuts. I'm one of those people who wants to make as few cuts on fabric as possible (that lessens the chance that I'll mess up!) That's one of the reasons that I designed the Half Rail Frenzy quilt. (You can get jelly rolls on sale right now (affiliate) - use promo code JR20 *Terms: Save 20% off regularly priced jelly rolls. Excludes sales items, pre-orders and clubs. Not valid with other offers. Limit 1 use per customer. Expires Monday, September 23, 2019 at 11:59pm CST.)

To make the quilt, you will need the following:

• 1 - Jelly roll (Bungalow Jelly Roll® by Kate Spain
• 1 - Layer cake (Bella Solids Layer Cake® White)
• Backing - 2 yards 108" (Modern Background Fog Moda Basics) 
• 1 yard - binding (Bungalow Curio Fuchsia)

All seams are 1/4" The first thing you want to do is prepare your fabric.

Layer Cake: You will need 24 layer cake or 10" squares. Draw a diagonal from one corner to the opposite corner on the back side of all 24 pieces (see below). Set aside.

Jelly Roll: Choose 30 jelly roll strips. (Helpful hint: Before unwrapping your Jelly Roll, run a lint roller on each side of the bundle - that will result in less fuzz!)

Cut each strip into 4 - 10 1/2" pieces. This will give you a total of 120 pieces that measure 2 1/2" x 10 1/2".

Sort your strips into sets of 5 (a total of 24 sets). You can sort by color, design, or mix it up for a scrappy look. For this quilt, I laid out all of my strips, then selected 5 pieces. I tried to make sure that there were no duplicates in each set.

Making the Blocks Sew the five piece sets together to make a rail fence block. To do this, you will sew 5 of the 2 1/2" x 10 1/2" pieces together (on the long side) so that you end up having a block that looks like the picture below. You will end up with 24 rail fence blocks. Press seams open.

Optional: you can trim these blocks to 10 x 10 if you'd like. I chose not to trim them at this point.

Next, we're going to make half-square triangles with the rail fence blocks. With each rail fence block facing up, place a layer cake square on top, centering.

Important: make sure that all of your rail fence blocks are facing the same direction (horizontal or vertical) and that your layer cakes are all facing the same direction (diagonal line going from left top to bottom right or left bottom to top right) when doing this step. Otherwise, your blocks will not turn out correctly! How do I know this? Happened to me!

Pin each set to ensure that the fabric doesn't shift when sewing. Sew 1/4" on both sides of the line that is drawn on the layer cake.

After sewing all of the blocks, press, and then cut along the drawn line (dotted line in above pictures). Press seams to the solid portion of your block. Trim each block to 9 1/2" square. You should now have 48 blocks.

Assembly When assembling your quilt top, I recommend that you use a design wall. I don't have one, so I used a bed to lay out my blocks. I also recommend taking photos of your layout - it helps me to better visualize the whole layout of the quilt.

Rows 1, 3, 5, 7 will go together like this:

Rows 2, 4, 6, 8 will go together like this:

Your final quilt block placement will look like this:

Here is my quilt top:

Finishing the Quilt Finally, you will quilt and bind your quilt.  I love wide backing as I don't have to piece it!

For my quilting, I did rows of straight line quilting (this was before I had my longarm - fed it through my little domestic!)

 And, finally, here is my finished quilt!

This quilt finishes at 54" x 70".

I saw it on Fat Quarter Shop Jelly Rolls Fabric Sale - Jelly Roll Fabric & Quilt Fabric Strips

Thank you so much for reading along. I hope that you give this quilt a try. You'll be able to get some different designs if you switch up the block placement.

I want to share also that anyone who mentions this post by September 30, 2019, can get edge-to-edge quilting for .125 per square inch!! (You need to place a deposit by Sept 30 to lock in the price. Quilting must be completed in 2019). Send me an email bluegrass.stitches1 at gmail dot com for more information!! 

Until next time - blessings & peace - and happy crafting!

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** Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. This is at no cost to you.**