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!

Little Boy Logic

Little kids have their very own sense of what is logical. For example, it is perfectly logical for Monster Truck to think a mixing bowl full of chocolate cake batter is a wonderful mud pit. And isn't it great to see said monster truck make muddy tracks along the floor, up the walls, across the counter? Of course. Bye the way - this is a photo from AFTER I got that Monster Truck all bathed, scrapping out batter from each and every tread on all 4 wheels - and don't you know - he is right back on the counter looking for any last remnants of MUD that Momma hadn't swipped off the counter yet because I was too busy cleaning the floor!

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And, Momma, don't drink out of your water bottle, ok? Ummm - why? Turns out there was a squished dead spider in the water bottle. Little Boy thought it perfectly logical to squish the spider and then put it in the water bottle to drown it. This coming from a child who was bitten by a spider last summer and his arm swelled up 3X in size and his skin turned all red and rubbery in a perfect circle radiating from that bite - all around his little body. Yes, I rushed him right over to the clinic thinking his breathing might be affected, but fortunately he was ok. But really, must we go messing around with squishing spiders?

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And, there is a cricket in the batter bowl because he is hoping the cricket will sing him a song. Thanks for telling me before I go about using that bowl!

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And, there is a trail of cookie crumbs along the floor to feed the friendly bugs. Friendly bugs? Do tell! Hey, didn't I just vacume that floor in the morning???

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There is hand soap in his sippy cup. I am not exactly sure why, but I am absolutely positive that if I asked him - he would have his very own reason.

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These are just the few things that come to the top of my mind from the past week. I guess what I am trying to say here - if you have Little Ones underfoot, always ask them their reasoning behind any questionable behaviour, because trust me, chances are they will have a perfectly logical reason and if you can find humor in the situation, you will be laughing about it for years. Believe me, I don't think I will EVER look at a mixing bowl full of chocolate cake batter the same way again! Mud pit indeed!

Checkerboard Log Cabin Finished/Quilty Post

You might remember that I was working on this top last summer... and here is the finished result! I must say, I am really pleased with it. Typically, I make my log cabins fairly big with no borders... with this one - I switched sewing machines somewhere along the way and due to a slight variation in seam allowance... these are the blocks that went together. Too small. So, I added the solid red border, the checkerboard border from scraps from another project, bought yardage for the outer border fabric (I almost always have to buy yardage for borders as most my fabric is smaller pieces)... decided I wasn't so sure about the border fabric and let it sit for awhile longer, finally decided that just about any border fabric would be better than an unfinished top so I used what I originally purchased. I debated about the width of the final border and finally went with 9.5" - I like it. At the end of the day - the border fabric I bought seems like a perfect fit, so now I am not so sure what my original doubts were! It fits my queen sized bed with a nice overhang on the sides (I have a footboard so that is always an issue, but if I make a big pillow tuck it usually takes care of extra length and I like extra wide to hang over since my bed is high). NOT like I don't already have a log cabin on my bed, because one of my older logs is a true favorite.




By request - a photo of my 3rd Shakespear, all pieced! Until I figure out a better photo method for tops, you will just have to imagine the top row because right now it gets draped over a fence!









And finally, a photo of 1/2 of my current project - I will let you know how it goes as I make more progress.

It is a very busy time of year for me right now... but a lull is on the horizon!