Statutory widths?

Most strip cuts are 21/2in wide, the width Moda chose for their Jelly Roll cuts, so patterns written for Jelly Rolls tend to assume this width. However, the exact width varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, though none are narrower in my experience. Fractionally wider strips won't work well for many published 'Jelly Roll' patterns, unless the strips are trimmed to the exact 21/2in width. Some, like Hoffman's Bali Batik Pops, are not cut as straight as I would like, but with a little fudging work fine for Super Strips. On the whole, strip sets custom cut by shops always seem to be spot on. The Fabric Freedom rolls are a little wider but a popular choice for my Super Strips workshop, which is why I decided to work through a new workshop sample with a roll from this range and see just how well the minute alteration to the seam allowance afforded by using the standard Bernina no. 1 foot would take in this extra amount.

It worked well! Would have worked even better if I had not forgotten to add the seam allowance to the baseline when cutting out the corner triangles and then had to trim back the inner border (in the photo above, with the gold/yellow knotwork design on it). Cutting them early in the morning probably had something to do with it LOL.


If I hadn't made that mistake, the central section i.e. everything within the two yellow borders, inner and outer, would have been 3/4in larger, so there would have been only a few adjustments to make in the outer piano key border - a point I thought I should mention here, as I'll probably direct workshop participants back to these blog posts in future, for finishing tips.

OK, the last few post titles have been playing around with highways, more specifically Public Rights of Way legal terminology (although an 'Easement' is a private right of access and 'Double Yellow Lines' my red herring, if you excuse the pun!) - I used to work in Rights of Way (public footpaths). There is no statutory width for a strip cut!