I’m so excited to announce a new Cedar Quilt Co. pattern! Introducing Standing Tall, a free Jelly Roll friendly quilt pattern that is perfect for beginner quilters. Sew many colorful fabrics together to create a painterly effect.
Standing Tall is FREE for our newsletter subscribers! Sign up using the link below to get this free pattern. If you are already subscribed, simply sign up again using the same email, you wont be added to the newsletter twice.
The Inspiration
Standing Tall is inspired by the impossibly tall trees throughout the Pacific Northwest landscape. Walking through these forests is a beautiful and calming experience. When the sun filters through the canopy, many colors appear and the trees come alive with light.
I love my daily strolls through the woods and in light of the recent increase in forest fires in BC, I cherish the trees more than ever.
Standing Tall is also a great reminder to oneself to be proud and self assured. When sewing this quilt I contemplated my own insecurities, including feeling like I don’t belong the quilting world. My designs are not clever enough. My points are not pointy enough, my stitching is not straight enough. I know I’m not the only person to feel this way about my work and I love that Standing Tall reminds me to push past those thoughts and remember what really matters. You are having fun, you are doing your best, you are here in this world, under the sunlit canopy of giants.
Jelly Rolls
Standing Tall is a simple and satisfying quilt that can be made using 2 ½" width of fabric strips (known as jelly roll strips). Yardage requirements are also included if pre-cuts are not your thing.
I enjoy a design challenge and when I heard that the third Saturday of every September is “National Sew a Jelly Roll Day”, I was intrigued! I’ve never worked with a Jelly Roll and I thought it would be fun to see what I could come up using one of these pre-cut bundles.
Jelly Rolls are bundles of 40 2.5” strips, cut from selvedge to selvedge accross the width of the fabric. They are cut from a wide variety of fabrics, often including every colour or print in a fabric collection. Jelly Rolls are a great way to get access to a wide variety of fabrics, already cut and ready for you to get right to the quilting. They also come rolled up into cute little swirls and they are SO satisfying to unroll.
I used a Jelly Roll of the “speckled” fabric collection by Rashida Coleman-Hale for Ruby Star Society. These fabrics have speckles throughout, including little mentallic dots! I love the colour palette for this collection and the way the metallic bits catch the light. I thought it would be perfect for Standing Tall and I was right!
Sizes and Fabric Requirements
I have provided four sizes for Standing Tall; baby, throw, twin, and bed size. I made the throw size for my sample and it is the best size if you have one Jelly Roll and you want to make a quilt with it. You will need 2 Jelly Rolls to complete the twin or bed sizes, and the baby size only uses a portion of one Jelly Roll.
As you can see, the throw size requires only 30 WOF strips, and a Jelly Roll includes 40. This is intentional because there are often some strips in a bundle that you do not like or do not fit the design. For example, I did not include the lighter strips from my bundle and I set them aside for another project. You can also use the leftover strips for a scrappy binding if you like!
The Twin size requires 48 strips, so you can get 2 Jelly Rolls or you can supplement some strips from your fabric stash to add to one Jelly Roll, it is up to you.
If your prefer to use yardage or fat quarters instead of pre-cut strips, follow the chart below. Note that using yardage/FQs will result in a smaller variety of fabrics represented in the final quilt. Each ¼ yard is cut into (3) 2 ½″ WOF strips. Each FQ is cut into (6) 2 ½″ x 21″ strips.
Construction
Sewing the Standing Tall quilt is easy! The instructions will walk you through how to cut and assemble this pattern. You get to decide which colours/prints go where and you can play around with the placement before sewing it all together.
This pattern is excellent for beginners because it does not require a lot of matching of points or any diagonal pieces. It is very straightforward and approachable. Even picking out the fabric is easy, you just grab a Jelly Roll and some background fabric and you are good to go!
I hope you enjoy making the Standing Tall quilt as much as I did! This pattern is FREE for our newsletter subscribers! Sign up using the link below to get this free pattern. If you are already subscribed, simply sign up again using the same email, you wont be added to the newsletter twice.
PS: In case you were wondering - yes! - I do plan to quilt this up and complete it! I'm really excited to do some vertical straight line quilting on my home machine.