The beginning of my Bargello

I love the Bargello quilting style. The bright colors, the ability to pick crazy fabrics you might not otherwise choose, the numbers oh numbers (I know I am a total nerd) all appeal to me. The monotony of the pick and re-sewing soothe me, the finished product delights me. The hardest part about a Bargello is picking out twenty(20) fabrics that coordinate enough. I can literally spend hours in the fabric store, this time I think I have gotten lucky. I took a friend who owns an embroidery store and has an eye for colors to assist me in the choices. (It has been a few years remember) It only took about an hour with his help. (no, he is not gay--Don't be judgy)

I have a lot of ironing to do... this is after washing and drying

The poor lady at the fabric shop "wow, what is she making looks like a large project" .. I only needed 1/2 yard of each  of them. Bonus was they were having a sale so most of them were only $4.00 a yard.  So I rushed home and threw them into the washing machine so I can begin my cutting into strips and sewing to cut into more strips and pick them apart and re-sew and then finally begin piecing the quilt together.  This is not a tutorial sorry! I will however show you pictures of my progress.

Here is the basic process:

Step 1 pick out fabric----sorry no photo though the stack of bolts was impressive
Step 2--patiently wash fabric, then dry fabric, then iron fabric
Step 3--cut fabric into strips
Step 4--number fabric and create a matrix
Step 5 --sew strips together in numerical order
Step 6--cut strips into thinner strips
Step 7-- pick apart and put together strips again, making really long strips in a pattern making                  sure to keep them in order(I sew them together as I go)
Step 8 --sew all strips together for final piecing
Step 9 --- add border
Step 10-- add second border
Step 11 - glue piecing onto batting
Step 12 -- pick out backing, wash back, dry back iron backing
Step 13 glue backing onto batting,
Step 14 buy tagging guy or a lot of safety pins
Step 15 safety pin or use fun tagging gun
Step 16- start quilting from the middle out
Step 17-- continue quilting... it is a big quilt
Step 18 cut off excess
Step 19 measure and prepare strips for border
Step 20 attach border
Step 21 Have a bottle of wine to celebrate.

NOT A BARGELLO--But it was my very first quilt!

Wow so it has been a long while... but I AM BACK

I hope to be back and writing on a regular basis. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's roughly three years ago now. If you don't know what it is or what it does google " A letter to Hashimoto's" It will sum it up pretty well there. I also found out last January that I am Gluten intolerant... I am NOT going to get into the debate on whether or not it is real. It is real for me and not having gluten totally changed my life. :)

On to better and brighter things. :) To catch you up life has been crazy this past year. I have become super involved with the city I live in, was a large part of the Chamber for a while and am now the proud co-owner of a fitness center... SWEET... but I haven't been able to quilt in FOREVER or so it seems. So the next few blog posts will be about quilting yay!

Thank you for those who subscribed and are still hanging around. :)

Talk to you soon!

Mrs. W