Bargello….
Irish Patchwork Society, IPS has given us a theme to create quilts. The theme is ” There is always one“.
There is always one seam not matching. There is always one colour quite not fitting. There is always one fabric not right. Or something. I can say a lot with that relating patchwork quilt!
I spent sometime pondering those ideas but none of them were quite inspireingg.
Then a bulb lit up! There is always one Bargello or Lone Star quilt in a quilt show, at least one. Don’t you think?
Since the required size is A2, I didn’t think Lone Star quilt would fit well. Also I actually never made Bargello even though I have thought how to make it many times.
The thing about Bargello is they look impressive but not difficult to make but getting right fabrics is the biggest hurdle. Since I was making only A2 size quilt, I might have enough fabric for it, I thought.
Next step was to draft the pattern which was mind bending. I sat at my PC with drawing program on and battled it until I was happy over two days.
I wanted to create a circle shape and two colour scheme crossing over. And this is the result.
I used rainbow colour so I wouldn’t be confused while drafting. The yellow part was the one I wanted close to be a circle shape. This drafting was done in a much wider picture so I could understand what was going on. The required size, A2 was just bigger than centre circle.
With going through my stash, not shop one, piles of beige fabric shouted to be used. Beige to brown and the opposite was yellow to red.
The starting strips were 2″ and sub cut sizes were from 2.5″ to .75″.
Because all the strips were in different length, the construction was a bit chaotic! I started from the very centre and went outwards. Sometime adding extra in odd places, I did finish it eventually.
The very white fabric is the yellow on my draft which was to be most circle shape. In order to enhance curvature, I quilted with flowing feather motives mainly. One following white and other mid orange. Ones on the orange entwined in the centre red. Brown parts were quilted with feather too but curving opposite way.
The above was still bigger than A2 because I hadn’t decided how to cut it yet. Off centre or on? Binding or facing to finish the edge?
I decided to put the red in the centre and binding it with extra. I thought one colour binding didn’t fit since there is very white part and dark parts. White binding might have worked. But I put a pattern matching binding.
All the seams on the binding were bit bulky because it wasn’t attached as bias but that had to be this way.
I had to cut off almost all the black fabric in the end but happy with the result!
