Monday, October 22, 2012

Worms to Noodles to Jelly Rolls

Four Patches & Friends

I love flowers and I love floral prints. I remember seeing this quilt made up in a shop on the northern edge of Minneapolis/St. Paul on my way back to the lake about 10 years ago. I couldn't take my eyes off it! I bought the book "Open Up a Can of Worms" by Debbie Caffrey and a package of 60 worms (2.5" strips).  When I got home I set up my machine in our family room and sewed at least half of these 80 blocks during NCAA March Madness.

Then they got put away until I'd pull them back out, fall in love all over again and sew a few more. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Over the lifetime of this UFO, "Worms" were renamed "Noodles" and eventually reborn as "Jelly Rolls".  And, there was an explosion of new patterns and books featuring them. To my knowledge, Debbie Caffrey's book which was published in 2000 is the original.

I thought I'd lay these out and audition some inner border fabrics today on my design king sized bed. Guess what... I've totally forgotten how challenging it can be to put blocks into a pleasing layout. I have 40 pairs of identical blocks, and one of the fabrics in each block was used twice so I need to spread out those 4 in addition to the identical pairs. Sigh. This is so NOT going to happen on the bed today~! I'll be moving these to a spare bedroom floor where I can close the door and come back periodically to play with them over the next few days. We are having a grey day today so you will have to trust me that these blocks are beauties.

I'm linking up to Design Wall Monday@Patchwork Times.

8 comments:

  1. It looks beautiful! I have 2 of Debbie's books and if that's in one of them, I'm going to make it. I was wondering myself about the 2.5" strips and who coined the names for them.

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  2. Very pretty blocks. I really like the looks of them. This is a great idea for a scrappy quilt.

    I had never heard of the names worms or noodles before. Kind of fun names.

    We have lots of sunshine going on here in SD, so maybe it is moving your way in MN.

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  3. I really like the look of these blocks and the layout. This with be a wonderful quilt.
    I am going to look to see if that is the same book that I have.

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  4. Love all you pretty floral fabrics!

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  5. I like the layout a lot. Great floral quilt!

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  6. Beautiful layout, I think!

    They were called 'worms'? Thank heavens they changed that - a Worm Quilt doesn't have the appealing ring as a Jelly Roll Quilt... Or a Noodle Quilt. I could still live with Noodles, but Worms?

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  7. wow they look lovely - must look up that pattern

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  8. Wondering if it would look half as nice if it was totally scrappy.... I have a lot of 2 1/2" candies to figure out what I'm going to do with them!
    This is a great quilt!

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