Free quilt pattern: Barnaby River Race

April 23, 2019

Grab a couple of jelly rolls or whittle down your stash to make this fast, modern quilt stitched together using the “jelly race” method. Colored squares sprinkled across the top leave ample room for creative quilting. Thank you to Beverly Hackett, owner of APQS Barnaby River/Edge Squared Quilting, for this fun pattern!

Instructions given are for a quilt measuring about 55” x 60.” Need it bigger? Cut wider strips from regular yardage. Strips cut 3” wide give you a 54” x 75” quilt; 3½” strips make a quilt about 60” x 92.”

Fabric Requirements

3½ yards main fabric
Assorted scraps to make 46 squares, each 2½ inches

NOTE: For super-fast cutting, try the Stripology Ruler by Creative Grids®

Cutting Instructions

From main fabric, cut 48 strips, each 2½ inches by the width of fabric (WOF). Trim selvage ends off each strip.
From scraps, cut 46 squares, each 2½ inches.

Assembly

This quilt is put together like a “jelly race” quilt but it uses more strips to create a larger finished quilt.

Step One:

With right sides together, sew a 2½-inch square on to one short end of each main fabric strip. Press seams toward the darker fabric.

Next join all the strips together into one long, single strip by adding the plain short end of one unit to the 2½” square of another. (I sit on my very first strip so that I can find it when I finish sewing all the strips together.)

Step Two:

Next take the first strip you are sitting on and cut off about 16 inches.

Step Three:

Hold on to this end and find the last strip…(there should not be a 2.5 inch square on the last strip).

Lay the first strip on top of the last strip with right sides facing each other, aligning the long sides of the entire long, strip together. Sew a ¼-inch seam down the entire length on one side of this long strip. Cut the bottom open where you folded this long strip together. You now have two strips sewn to each other along one long side. Press the long seam to one side.