The Surprise Sew-in...

Take one Jelly Roll and a yard or so of background fabric, and the result is this fast and simple "Mardi Gras" quilt top! Our guild recently held what we billed as a "Surprise Sew-in". It was a one-day retreat, and everyone who signed up brought the above fabrics and their machines, ready for a fun day of sewing.

We selected four different patterns from Villa Rosa Designs. Members chose an envelope at random, and that was the pattern they used. Everyone was quite delighted with their surprise selections. You can see the style of the Villa Rosa designs in the last photo. The entire Rosecard pattern is printed on a post card, and each one has an attractive full-color photo of the quilt on the front. There's a large selection of patterns, but we kept it to those that use Jelly Rolls.

It was fun to see the assortment of fabric strips members brought. All of the work surfaces looked chaotic for awhile.

But fairly quickly the blocks and pieced units began to take shape. Members also had the option of using a kit assembled for them by the organizers to sew a donation quilt. The kits were assembled using 2 1/2" strips from a large bin of donated strips we keep for Friendship Quilts. The kit above had brights and the one below contained florals.

Everyone made excellent progress, and many had their quilt tops ready to assemble by the end of the day. This pattern is called "Blueberry Hill."

And here are two more patterns I purchased and plan to make sometime. We held a show-and-tell of the tops at our guild meeting, but I was holding up quilts and didn't get any pics! It was certainly fun to see all of the quilts made from a single pattern held up together. And the event made for a popular guild activity which I'm sure we'll repeat.