Pudding & Pie Quilt: perfect quilt for a jelly roll

The Pudding & Pie quilt is an easy and versatile Jelly Roll quilt. The blocks are made with 2 1/2″ strips of fabric both printed and solid. In fact, you could use two Jelly Rolls! And our pattern uses the entire jelly roll.

Why Did You name it That?

As he was hanging the pattern for display at our last quilt show, my husband asked, “Why did you name it that?” Truth be told, I did not name it that. Someone named it that when it was published in the early 20th century. I simply wanted to pay homage to the original name. And the name is definitely a conversation starter.

A Little History

Per Barbara Brackman’s Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns, the Pudding & Pie block is a vintage pattern attributed to Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks around 1939. Distributed by Old Chelsea Station Needlecraft Service which was, in fact, comprised of several mail-order pattern companies.

Apparently, the post office at Old Chelsea Station, Manhattan, New York was the location at which mail orders for all types of needlework patterns were received. Quilters eventually began referring to the pattern companies simply as ‘Old Chelsea Station Needlecraft Service’.

Searching for A piece of History

I love finding original mail-order quilt patterns for my collection. So, I searched Etsy and eBay for actual quilt patterns attributed to Laura Wheeler/Alice Brooks hoping to find an original set of templates. I found several patterns for resale, but sadly not Pudding & Pie.

However, I thought an envelope with the return address of Chelsea Station was still a great find. The pattern envelope is shown below. Eventually, I’m going to work on designing a quilt with the templates inside. The pattern is from ‘The Prairie Farmer’ by Alice Brooks with a postmark of 1959.

As I searched for patterns, I noticed that Alice Brooks was listed most often as the author of quilt patterns while Laura Wheeler was associated with more embroidery and crochet patterns.

Use the Entire Jelly Roll

Yes, our Pudding & Pie quilt pattern uses a single jelly roll and background fabric. If you want to use a jelly roll for the background too, that will work. Unfortunately, the color we used for our background was not available as a jelly roll pre-cut. But, it’s all made from 2-1/2″ strips of fabric.

Not My Typical Background Color

Just a quick note about my background fabric choice. I wanted to experiment with a colored background. Most of my quilts have snow, white, or bone as the background fabric. While that works well in many cases, I needed something other than white for this quilt.

There were several prints in this fabric line with white backgrounds that would have been lost if I had chosen to use white. So, it was the perfect chance to try another color for the background.

I see so many vintage quilts with dusty rose, green, and yellow backgrounds. I’ve wanted to try that look for a long time and this jelly roll was perfect.

I tried several colors, but a color with the same value and intensity yet different hue did the trick. There is no exact match of the background blue in the fabric line. I think that is why it works.

If you are using a jelly roll that looks best against white or gray, use that. Always use what makes your fabric shine.

Make one Block

Okay. There’s nothing worse than using your precious fabric only to discover that you absolutely HATE the block you’re making. So, I suggest that you grab some 2-1/2″ leftover strips and give the instructions below a try. Make one block. I think you’ll like it enough to make more.

Get the Pattern

Love the simplicity of the block? Find your favorite jelly roll, choose your background fabric and make the whole quilt.

Our Use-it-Up Jelly Roll Pudding & Pie Quilt pattern makes a 48″ X 72″ (approximately) throw-size quilt. It’s available in both a downloadable (PDF) and paper version.