Interwoven Bargello Quilt - Tutorial

Based on the lovely quilt I saw on Lorrie Cranor's blog, http://lorrie.cranor.org/blog/2013/03/15/computational-thinking/, I was inspired to make one of my own.  One of my sisters was cleaning out some of the fabric in her sewing room that she wasn't going to use and passed it on to me.  There were a bunch of strips cut that were about 21" long and 2.25" wide.  I don't like waste, but how was I going to use these fabric strips and what had she planned on doing with them?  Should I just make whatever she had planned?

When I asked her, she couldn't remember what her plan had been.  At first I thought I'd just do one of those random strip quilts.  I wasn't in love with the idea, but it seemed a satisfactory way to use all of the strips.  Then I happened across Lorrie Cranor's quilt posted on pinterest.  Now that was an idea I could love! 

I started to do my own figuring, not being the computer techie person, but rather visualizing it and drawing some thoughts on graph paper.  (I have a graph paper quilt for two sizes of quilts I made.  For the smaller one, I cut the 21" strips in half and cut them down to 2" widths).

I figured out how many of each color I needed and made sure I had enough strips of each.  I needed one more color.  I looked carefully at the colors and decided that there was some burgundy in the orange to pink strip.  I had some burgundy in my stash and cut some strips.

When I lay it out on the floor to get an idea of how it looked, at first I was delighted.  I loved the two flowing curves that went in opposition to each other.  I loved the colors my sister had and how they went together.  But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that the burgundy did not fit in.  True the color was in there, but it didn't flow with the rest of the fabric.

 I then inserted a purple and moved the colors around, which fit.  Even though there was no purple in the striped fabrics, the colors flowed and I was again feeling delighted.

My method for putting this together was similar to that of putting together two simultaneous bargello quilts.

 1. Sew the strips that will be in one row into a loop, taking care that the colors are in the correct order.  In this case, it's the striped pink/orange, purple, striped green/blue, and yellow.

 2. Do the same with the other series of colors.  In this case, green, blue, pink and orange.  Stack them like this.  I have the color that will be cut in two on the left hand side.

 3. Now we need to cut the yellow and orange.  Measure carefully according to your plan.  In this case, the orange will be 2.25" on the pink side and 8.25" on the green side.  Crease the fold and hold carefully so that it doesn't slip.

 4. Cut carefully along the fold.

 5. Repeat for each loop taking care to have the correct number of each one cut at the different lengths.  I have several of each length.  The different lengths of yellow and orange increase by the same amount - 1.5".  The amounts are written on my graph paper with tallies as to how many of each I need, so I don't mess up. 2-1/4, 3-3/4, 5-1/4, 6-3/4, 8-1/4.  You can see that where the orange is 2-1/4 on the pink side, it's going to be 8-1/4 on the green side and when it's 8-1/4 on the pink, it is 2-1/4 on the green.  Yes, the middle one is cut directly in half.

 6.  Then begins the sewing process.  Now, if I had a design wall, or floor space that people didn't walk on, I could lay it out and pick up two pieces at at time to sew and keep things in order that way, but I don't.

Again, relying on my graph paper sketch where I have each size of row numbered.  I see that I need to pick up a #4 pink and sew it to the top of a #3 pink/orange.  Keep repeating until you have all the strips sewn to their next door neighbor.

7.  Lay them out in order.  For lack of floor space, I stack my pieces in such a way that I can keep them orderly and can pick up the right number of pieces at a time.

 8. Sew the pieces together.  I ironed the seams opened, figuring I'd try the way that some prefer - you never know if one way is truly better unless you give it a shot.  I'm not sold on it.  I'll stick with pressing my seams to the side.






9.  Continue sewing strips together, laying it out as needed.  You get the idea of where this one is going.

 10.  Back to the large one which I made first.  Once I had the quilt top put together, I figured I'd use those burgundy strips as the border.  I sewed them on.  Again, after looking at it a few days, I decided I had again made a mistake.  *SIGH*  Off they came and a new border was constructed.  I loved the big quilt so much that I then planned and made a baby size quilt to match that would help use up the rest of the strips my sister had given me.  I also thought to put together a tutorial for the second one.  The concept is the same for both.




Here is the final quilt top with the borders that matched.  Draping it over the couch  made it so I could almost take a picture of the whole thing, so I did it in two parts. ;-)