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I had promised a friend of mine a bargello lap / throw quilt. I was planning on doing a more standard bargello quilt, but then the LQS had a class on twisted bargello and I decided to give that a try. I should have stayed with the more straight forward bargello quilt, as the twisted bargello is considerably more complex. However, I like how this one is turning out. It is very time consuming though.
First thing is to purchase the book, Twist and Turn Bargello Quilts by Eileen Wright. Mostly because the arrangement of the colorways and then the cutting and piecing of the strips is key to getting the right twisted bargello look. You might be able to find some free twisted bargello patterns on the Internet though if you look.
There are a lot of quilts in this book. Most of the class was doing Aurora Borealis; I decided to do the Island Sunset, which is the one on the cover. I should have checked the patterns out more clearly because Island Sunset is a bit more difficult.
The first, and to my thinking, most difficult part of the quilt is choosing the colors. The Island Sunset pattern calls for 20 fabrics in two colors, although looking at the colorway the author shows in the book, it looks like 3 colors -- yellow, red and brown.
I thought adding more colors rather than more shades of one color would work better, so I chose 5 shades of 4 colors: yellow, greens with yellow, red, and brown, so realistically I just added more tones by adding the greens with yellow.
Once you have your fabrics chosen, lay them out next to each out in the colorway. Most everyone in the class found themselves shifting fabrics around to get their final colorway of 17 (for Aurora Borealis) or 20 for Island Sunset (two of us were doing that one). After you have your final colorway, cut small squares of each fabric and glue them (or staple) them to a piece of paper with the number under it. With that many fabrics, you need a reference point.
We starched the fabrics and cut 1.5 inch strips the width of the fabric (roughly 42"), labeling each set of strips with the appropriate number in the colorway. I chose to store mine looped over hangers.
The books says to sew the fabric strips together full WOF -- 42". I did that the first time, but over 42" there is too much curve even if you sew them alternating which end you start with, which means you are resquaring every 3 strips you cut. So after using the first full length colorway, I cut the strips of fabric in half and sewed 20" strips. Again alternating the direction of sewing.
My colorway sewn together:
Obviously later I will piece in another strip on fabric 3 which is a little short. The teacher said that wouldn't be a problem. You just have to be sure to cut around the small seam.
After squaring up the strip set, follow the instructions from the book, to cut crosswise strip sets.
For my quilt the crosswise strip sets range from 3/4" to 2". For each full length strip you need to cut 3 crosswise strips as you will use parts of all three strips. Below is a rough schematic of how it all goes together from the book.
To explain a little better. You might start the strip set with fabrics 2 through 20, then add a strip that is fabric 7 through 20, next reversed fabrics 16 down to 13, then add a piece 1 through 11. For the strip I am currently working on the layout is below.
You work the quilt from the center out. The center strip is pieced and then you add strips to each side.
Here is where I'm at on the lap quilt: about 1/3 of the way done.
I very much like how it is working out, but I doubt I would do another one. Just too time consuming.
How about you? What are you quilting?
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