Bargello Progress

Well, here is my Bargello - all ready for borders! It is about 40" X 60". The pattern is from Big Horn quilts - it is free at www.bighornquilts.com and for a first try, I don't think it is bad. I have 1 little oops but close to the edge so I didn't bother to fix it. And if I do another one - I will make a steeper curve just for the fun of it to see the difference.

So, some hints if you decide to do one of these yourself...

1. When I first laid out the strips, I numbered each row at the very bottom edge (inside where the seam would be) with a fabric marker. With Little Boy - I never know what can happen to my nice orderly piles - in a mere instant. So, I thought I better number them right away.

2. Instead of sewing 1 row to the next to the next... I pinned row 1 and 2 together, 3 and 4, 5 and 6 - well, you get the idea. Then I could chain sew at my sewing machine. Press. I always pressed the seam toward the larger number so the numbering idea was great for pressing too! Then I pinned the segments together and sewed the seams in the opposite direction. In otherwords, when I sewed 1 and 2 together - all the seams pointed down. When I sewed 1/2 and 3/4 segment together - the seams pointed UP. Alternating which way you sew helps prevent wavy seams when sewing strips together.

3. PIN. Did I say pin? I am used to abutting seams together but with this pattern you want the seams to be mid-way between the pieces. At first I didn't pay much attention, but then I realized that some of the pieces were pretty far off-set. Ah well, I trimmed them all with the rotary cutter after the fact and I think that looks just fine (not yet trimmed in the photo, but I did get it all trimmed tonight!).

3. I used light spray starch when I pressed. Yes, I did. Probably a rule against that somewhere, but it works for me!

4. Try to keep your outside edge strips wider. One of my outside strips is very thin so will probably be lost when it comes to binding.

At first I was a big boggled to pick out my colors, but then I hit upon an idea... I would copy Nature's color - I went with fields of flowers (yellow, orange), dirt roads and plowed fields (browns) river (blues), trees (greens), purple mountains (3 rows of purple), fog (black), clouds (white and blue) sunset colors (pink, yellow). I had my 20 different fabrics in no time. And look at the photo of some of the old prints I used (se below)! Little Boy wants this for his bed - since I used his favorite color orange in there!

Still not sure exactly what I will do for borders - I am thinking about it... not that I will be at a fabric store anytime soon, but it is nice to have an idea in my head so that when I finally do get a chance to go shopping - I get something that I can use!

I must say - it was a fun stash-buster pattern! By the way- Big Horn has several other stash-busting strips of fabric type patterns posted too. Big Horn Quilts is one of my favorite on-line quilting store and when I was browsing the other day I was intrigued by this Bargello pattern - I am glad that I gave it a try!