Midweek Makers – NEW EVERY MORNING

Jelly Roll Bargello Quilt – progress and a free pattern

July 1, 2020 by Allison Reid

I’m making good progress with the Bargello quilt experiment.

The story so far: I’m using a Jelly Roll for fabric and have had a couple of attempts at designing and making blocks. My first pattern proved to be a bit too fiddly – for my tastes anyway – with the narrowest strips cut just ¾” wide. Before making the second block I changed the cutting measurements to no narrower than 1½” wide – much better! The thrid block I made was identical to the second… Or so I thought…. Doh! I mis-read my pencil pattern and had cut a couple of strips to the finished measurements with no seam allowances! A bit of unpicking had to happen! Thankfully there was enough left-over fabric for me to cut strips of the correct width to complete the block.

Then I had to bite the bullet and make the fourth block using my original narrow cutting measurements. When that was made I could sew all four blocks together and stand back to see the pattern flowing over the quilt top. So this is a bit of an experimental quilt top. I’m pleased I achieved my aims of designing and making Bargello blocks AND in the process used all forty Width Of Fabric strips from the Jelly Roll.

Four blocks stitched together – 50″ x 40″

Bargello – it turns out not to be as scary as it looks! I thought I’d write up my cutting and piecing instructions and share them. If you’ve shied away from this block in the past why not give it a go using my pattern, Basic Bargello Block -July 2020? All you need are ten width of fabric strips cut 2½” wide. Follow the method shared in the pattern – looking back at the photo tutorial in my ‘Jelly Roll Bargello Quilt – first block, step by step‘ blog post should help – and give it a go! Ten WOF fabric strips will make a block measuring 28″ x 20″.

Download the pdf Basic Bargello Block pattern here: Basic Bargello Block -July 2020

Let me know how you get on if you do give Bargello a try. Link up via my Facebook page, or use @allisonreid.neweverymorning on Instagram. I’d love to see versions of this pattern made in other colourways 🙂

Linking with Susan for Midweek Makers. Susan is busy designing rather than making at the moment but there are a whole host of bloggers from the Worldwide Quilting Community sharing their inspiring quilt projects in her link-up this week.

Allison

Jelly Roll Bargello Quilt – first block, step by step

June 25, 2020 by Allison Reid

So, designing and making a Bargello quilt, how hard can it be? 😀

There are plenty of Bargello patterns to be bought, found in books or available for free on the ‘interweb’… but none seemed to quite fit the fabric quantities I had available or the idea I had in my head…

Not only are there plenty of patterns available there are also a considerable number of cutting and piecing methods to choose from – both to follow in books and watch on YouTube. It took me a couple of days to assimilate the information I’d found, play around with pencil and eraser and look wistfully at the fabrics. Finally it was time to put a plan into action 🙂

Fabric: I used a Moda Jelly Roll, ‘Circulus’ by Jen Kingwell Designs, forty width of fabric strips cut 2½” wide. This collection conveniently has four each of ten colours making it easy for me to sort them into four matching sets. Other Jelly Rolls would need more careful sorting and maybe a few substitutions to replace those fabrics that wouldn’t play well in a Bargello pattern i.e. large, widely spaced designs which could break up the pattern across the quilt top.

The method: After much deliberation and many ‘huhs?’ followed by a few light-bulb moments I decided to employ a strip piecing ‘tube’ method to make this Bargello quilt. After all the research, I found most affinity with a tip-filled

Quilters Color Quest: 6 or is it 7? Value

June 10, 2020 by Allison Reid

At the top are the two New Paws on the Block! 😀

I’m falling behind with the Quilter’s Color Quest 🙁 Rachel Hauser has been using her book, ‘The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color’ as the backdrop to a series of blog posts and challenges encouraging us to explore colour. I’ve been following the posts and delving into my copy of the book whilst using the colour swatches to play with my fabric

Quilter’s Color Quest: 4. Colour Wheel

April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 by Allison Reid

Challenge 4 of the Quilter’s Color Quest is an introduction to colour theory and the colour wheel. Reading the section in Rachel Hauser’s book, The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color, and her corresponding blog post has helped me get my head round some of the language of colour theory and gain a better understanding of how to use a colour wheel.

I now know that ‘analogous colours’ are those in close proximity to each other on the colour wheel. Divide the wheel into quarters – it doesn’t matter where the dividing lines fall – and see analogous colours as those sharing the same quarter. ‘Complimentary colours’ on the other hand are those that fall on opposite sides of the wheel. Colours can be ‘tridactic’ – three colours equidistant apart on the wheel. There are other ways of dividing the wheel to help with choosing a colour scheme but for this challenge I was more than content to stick with exploring just these three.

From the collection of swatches I picked ‘Tiger’ orange as my anchor colour.