"Light 'n Dark" - 2.5" version - top finished

I’ve had more than one person mention that they wish my 2” patterns were available for 2.5” strips and pieces.

I’m starting to work on them now - primarily because I have so many of my own 2.5” strips to use up in a nice way AND because you have asked. It will become an ongoing project. Because I know there are already many “Jelly Roll” quilt patterns out there AND even books of them, I haven’t felt the need to come up with ones like that “just because” there are myriads of them out there.

However, as I go back and try to use up at least a bag of my 2.5” strips this year (I think I have about 6 bags now though I’m going to give one away soon to my friend Ewa and her mom to play with), I have no problem “taking you along for the ride with me”.

As I look at the patterns I have already made with my 2” strips, I’ll start there as I work on these 2.5” strips. I will attempt to make them at least a little different, if I can, however. They do work up faster as 2.5” strips, but the designs won’t be as detailed, usually!

This one, like my original “Light ‘n Dark” uses simply the shades as contrast to create the design. I did make this one with just white and creams, however, and not really “lights”. I could name it “White and Darker”. But I’m not.

I struggled to make it a bit interesting, however, and finally decided on this piano key border shaded, more or less, from light to dark in the corners. I noticed as I was cutting up that I have an awful lot of light fabrics!

I wasn’t worried about being exact on the light to dark on the piano key border, however. I was going for “effect”. I think it works. Because I did it, though, naturally, it took a bit longer to make this piano key border than it normally does for me when I am not worried about any sort of color scheme.

Because I was using solid white/cream as my alternate block/color, I allowed myself to use some lighter colors like pink. I would not have used them as the “dark” if I had been using any pastels at all as the lights.

When I made the piano key border, I first cut all the strips and then I split them up into lights and darkers.

I then sat at my table and counted them out into piles of 45 and 41 strips (cut 2.5”x6.5”) and organized them roughly, from light to dark. I didn’t try to be perfect - that wasn’t the goal. What I was going for was “effect”.

Here’s the layout if you are interested. I actually used 90 blocks - 16 patches. I made strip sets of white/darker/white/darker and cut them into 2.5” segments and made blocks. Piles of blocks. The blocks finished at 8” square. This quilt takes 90 blocks as I made it a 9x10 layout.

The borders were cut at 2” wide for the white and I pulled from my 2.5” cut up strips for the colorful. I was going for light to dark once again - hope I succeeded.

Although this is super easy, I will work up the pattern for you to have so you can have the version using 2.5” strips and squares. Of course, you can leave off the border completely and it would be just fine as well!

I was just trying to make it a bit more interesting for myself and even though I made it a lot more work, I’m glad I did the piano key border this way!

And there you are! Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store! She’s got some amazing goodies!

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