Jelly Roll Storage Nirvana -Finally
My photo for National Jelly Roll Day on Saturday…Like most quilters, I have them.
My stash of jelly rolls is fairly robust, but I’ve never had a really efficient way of storing them until recently. Most of mine are offcuts from yardage that I’ve been working with - I’m not ever going to be accused of being a good gardner, but I do have a bumper crop of strips to work with. I have a few jelly rolls that I’ve either purchased or won at events, and those remain contained until you open the packaging. My earliest attempt at putting them all in one place was in a big bin in my closet, with anything close to 2.5” just randomly tossed in. I didn’t use it because it was such a chore to sort them out by colors and by sizes - I either cut more (?!!) or moved onto another project. So they grew.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I hit on the idea of sorting the colors into ziploc bags in the bin.
A minimal investment, they actually were more useable and accessible, but they were stuffed into the bags and I had to pull everything out to see what I actually had.
One benefit to this was that as I sorted the colors, I pretty much had to touch everything in my collection, and I pulled out the less than 2.5”, and make a bag of just that width.
I had the feeling I was treading water, and none of the strips got used up.
Earlier this summer, I decided to take another attempt at looking at this. I discarded an older sterilite cart that I had repurposed from my son when he went to college because the wheels fell off and two of the drawers were cracked.
Some more shifting of things and I wound up with a space in my closet that was 13.5” wide and 36” tall, so with those measurements in mind, (and knowing I needed at least 3” clearance in any storage compartment, I went online shopping.
This isn’t a promoted post, but the answer to this dilemma was in the IRIS cart shown at right from Joann.
It is made out of plastic, but if it lasts as long as the other cart did, I will be happy. The reason I really liked it (over and above the size) is that the drawers slide out independently of one another. I don’t have to unstack or restack bins in order to access them. The cart can be wheeled over to my worktable - or my sewing machine - as I’m sorting for a project. If you’re looking for a ‘mindless’ sewing’ project to work on, just running strips through the machine, having your strips organized and accessible can be a real help.
Here’s a top down view of the cart when it’s in my closet. I keep the neutrals in the top bin and the jelly sized strips sorted by color in the next 3 drawers.
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I’m not going for a rainbow sort at this point, just keeping like minded colors together so I can easily get to them.
The bottom 2 drawers have my less than jelly sized strips sorted into 2 drawers - one warm and one cool colors. At some point I hope to whittle this down, but for now, this works well.
Sorted into a way I can access. One cart replaced one large bin and probably a dozen (at least) ziploc bags.
Another find, another set of przes…
I collected all my postcard sized patterns for jelly sized strips into one sleeve, ane put that into the top drawer as well, so I can easily just sit down, pick a pattern, and begin the sort.
I do have other pattern books in the library for strips, but these are so easy to work with.
One thing I’ve been asked is what about pre-washing - and I pre-wash this size of precut.
I don’t prewash Jellys (there, I said it)
Once the flimsy is completed, then I wash it gently and iron it well before moving onto the next step. Do you have a better solution? I’d love to learn from you.
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