Yield: One (1) jelly roll rug
How to Make a Jelly Roll Rug
Jelly roll rugs are a popular sewing project. It's not hard, but it does take some time to make them. I put on some shows and sewed away for two afternoons!
Pick a jelly roll with fabrics that suit your style, get some 2-1/2" batting rolls (or cut batting into about 50 yards of 2-1/2" strips), and LOTS of thread. Prepare about 7-8 bobbins ahead of time.
Prep Time
15 minutes
Active Time
8 hours
Total Time
8 hours 15 minutes
Difficulty
Easy
Materials
- 1 jelly roll pack
- 2 packages precut batting at 2-1/2" or about 50 yards of 2-1/2" cut batting - see note below. You can cut batting at 2-1/2" and piece them together to make a 50 yard length
- Thread to coordinate
Tools
- Sewing machine
- Extra bobbins recommended
- Iron
- Ironing board
Instructions
- Start by preparing the jelly roll strips. Sew the jelly roll pieces together, end to end, to make one long piece of fabric that is 2-1/2" wide. Press the seams open to keep them flat when you are sewing the fabric to the batting.
- Here is my pile of pressed fabrics ready to cover the batting!
- Next is to sew the batting inside the jelly roll strip. Lay the batting on the center of the wrong side of the strip of fabric. Fold the outside edges of the fabric in to cover the batting, then fold in half again with the cut edges hidden inside the fold. I did fold the leading end of the fabric over to finish the beginning of the strip.
Sew down the middle. If you miss catching some of the layers a little bit, that is okay, as you'll be zigzagging the edges to construct the rug.
- Here is my covered batting just lined up perfectly on the floor behind my sewing machine! All done - isn't it pretty?
- I picked up my fabric covered batting and moved it to my dining table. I needed more space to now make the rug. Since it was in the order it came off my sewing machine, it didn't tangle at all and just fed the process as I started round and round to make the rug.
- Now we start sewing the strips together to make an oval jelly roll rug!
I started with about 15" of the fabric covered batting and made a big "U". You need to really curve the ends, and smush it down.
TIP: Put the rounded edge to the outside and the two edged that are sewn together on the inside. This will make the outside of your rug be a finished rolled edge.
Set your machine for the biggest zig zag stitch on your machine, and have plenty of bobbins ready. I used 8 bobbins of thread for sewing this rug together. Zig zag the fabric covered batting together. When you get to the end, start wrapping the corner to make the rug.
- At the beginning, make sure to ease in a lot of the outside fabric as you round the corners so that the rug will lay flat. If you pull it up tightly, the curved ends will tend to curl a bit. To do this, lay the fabric very flat on your sewing surface and ease in until the outside edge can lay flat without cupping.
TIP: Use your sewing machine extension, or quilting extension table to make a flat bed. This will help keep the rug flat, and not curl.
TIP: Make sure that you are adding the next round from inside your sewing machine arm, not on the outside. As the rug gets bigger, it makes it much easier.
Keep sewing round and round until all of your strips are sewn into a rug! Just make sure everything is laying flat, or your rug won't lay flat. That is really the only thing you need to worry about. Turn on a series you want to watch, or your favorite podcast and binge!
TIP: If your rug starts to curl or be wavy, try really hard to make it very flat on your sewing machine bed when sewing. You'll have a tendency to lift it, but don't. A little bit of waviness can be pressed out with a good steam iron. - Here is the finished jelly roll rug. I love it!
