Another Jelly Roll Race !!!

Race Official, Andrea Williams



A few days ago I was a Pit Crew Member for a Jelly Roll Race held by the Cactus Patchers group, http://www.cactuspatchers.com/.  I've been a member of this group since 2003 and like many quilt groups they do community service work on an ongoing basis.  Their current mission is to make 25 quilts for a group of homeless families.  The group rotates between local churches that each provide a week of night time shelter and meals for the families.  Cactus Patcher member, Lora Riordan, is a member of the Mission del Sol Presbyterian Church in our area, this church is one that provides the service.  The quilts will be used by the homeless families when they are sheltering at that church.  Cactus Patcher members got together and cut some of their charity fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips and packaged them into kits in preparation for the race.  Guess you would call these Scrappy Jelly Rolls. 

There were twelve Jelly Roll Racers all doing their best to complete the first Jelly Roll quilt of the race.  Phyllis Ames, Jelly Roll Queen, was the first racer to finish a top.  Eleven tops were finished by the end of the race.  The twelfth top didn't get finished because when the kit was being put together the strip counter MUST have lost count cuz there was waaay more than 40 strips in that bag!

It seemed as though some of the machines were not as into the race as the racers were.  There were a couple of machine casualties.  It appeared as though the machines could not keep up with the racers enthusiasm and they overheated, refusing to take even one more stitch.  I'm sure they will recover after a little TLC and R&R.

It was a really FUN day for all and the Cactus Patchers highly recommend this as a really great way to make quilts for charity.