Repurposing a Jelly Roll Failure

This was one of my first quilt tops, it was a good exercise, the promise of a quilt top in under an hour.  If I remember correctly, it took an hour and a half.  Now what to do with it, because it was fast but it didn't spark joy, so it sat in the stash for this past 10 years and I'm trying to deal with my UFO stash before cutting into new projects.

A friend of mine had suggested that I make, 9 patches, when I started quilting.  I was distracted by all of the other patterns, I never got around to it, this was my opportunity. The unimaginable was done, it needed to be taken apart in three piece strips, then reassembled into 9 patch blocks.  

I wasn't too precious about it, I was pretty sure that the seam allowances weren't accurate, and there was ruffling on the batik strips for some reason (shrinkage?). The white jelly roll was one with pinked edges, which I will never purchase again.  I could never determine where the "edge" was on the pinked edge, and that created wonky blocks. I'm on the fence about purchasing jelly rolls ever again. After taking this one apart, you could see areas with a twisted and distorted grain, which is never a good thing. so I will say no to pinked jelly rolls.

You're going to have waste with this method, the ends of the cut strips, and the funky areas where the strips had been joined.  

I wasn't sure if I should keep on going and incorporate the 45 degree bits, so as we all do, I put the blocks up to play and see how many there were and how large of a quilt I would have.

Of course there were strips that were solid prints with no white, maybe we can use them?

Maybe we can hide them in steps? Left or right? hmmmm 

I think we have a winner, my first on point quilt.

Can I do better using the scraps?

It wasn't quite large enough, so I added a border.... 

This was the solution, I'm happy with the final design, of course, had I known what the final design would be, there would have been a better piecing solution.  The small 3" border patches will be attached by hand, as appliques.

Which took a weekend to attach, not quite the sharp points I wanted, but it's out of the bin, and this will be my new sofa quilt.

Now.... should it be sent out for quilting? or should I quilt it at home? decisions decisions....