My Cat loves my new Jelly Roll Rug

I love fabric, and so does my cat. She will crawl under, lie on top of, and occupy any surface that has fabric on it.

Whether it’s a pile of quilts…

A quilt on my sewing room sofa…

My footstool…

A drawer of fabric that I am trying to find something in…

A quilt on my sewing frame…

Or just a basket of scraps.

She pretty much spends her entire day in my sewing room, sleeping on one soft surface or another. This weekend was no exception. She was my constant companion (for good and bad).

Having ended a long week at work, this weekend I really wanted a “mindless” project that didn’t require much thought but would make me feel like I had accomplished something. A Jelly Roll Rug seemed like the perfect project to work on. For a nice tutorial on making a rug, see Erica Arndt’s video. I had never made one before and surprisingly, it was a rather quick project and perfect for my weekend.

I’ve seen Jelly Roll Rugs in the past and have thought that I would like to make one. In fact, nearly two years ago, I sorted through some of my scrap batik fabrics thinking that they would make a lovely rug for my sewing room. The fabrics were stacked in my closet, and promptly ignored because of other projects that I wanted to make.

Taking this pile of fabric out of the closet and placing it on my sewing desk was “heaven” to my cat. She kept wanting to lay down on top of the fabrics. To make the rug, instead of using a Jelly Roll, I sorted my fabrics into a rainbow gradient and cut my own 2.5″ strips. I used a total of 22 different fabrics. Rather than doing a standard jelly roll rug pattern, I wanted each fabric to make one complete circle around the quilt. This meant I needed to complete each round before added the fabric for the next round to the project. I also pieced my fabric with straight seams rather than cutting at an angle (I hate to waste fabric).

Starting with one strip of the first fabric, each round increased in size. The last round used 3 strips of the darkest fabric. Thus, I used anywhere from 2.5 inches to a maximum of a quarter yard of fabric.

For the batting, I cut 2″ strips from scrap batting until all of my leftovers were used up (Yeah – I emptied an entire storage container of odd sized pieces of batting!). When I ran out of leftover batting, I decided to try using a precut batting spool. This was an easier and quicker way to work on the rug. To manage the roll, I clamped a wooden rod to my sewing desk. With the roll on the rod, the batting came off without twisting. This also kept the roll off the floor where my cat would try to play with it.

I found a handy folding tool that I used to make the project go faster.

All in all, this was a fun project that I was able to complete in one weekend. If I had used a precut jelly roll and precut batting, I could have easily completed it in a day.

I now have a colorful rug on my sewing room floor.