Rainbow Bargello Quilt

Would you like to know a secret? You see the rainbow quilt that’s at the top of every page? ~~It’s for sale. It’s been on my Etsy shop for a while, and it gets a lot of attention at my craft fairs. But no one has stepped up to take it home. Here it is.~~ It has sold!!

I’ve always considered bargello quilts to be particularly impressive. Seriously, they’re like a fabric kaleidoscope! I had also considered them out of my league, so you’ll imagine my surprise when I found a nice tutorial at the Lets Quilt Something blog that made them not look scary at all! In fact, the tutorial helped me make the decision to finally give it a go.

I wasn’t using a jelly roll (pre-cut fabric strips), though. I had so much fabric in my stash that I couldn’t justify it – although I did have to go out and grab some orange fabric before everything was said and done.

After cutting and joining strips for forever, I followed the tutorial exactly as described. It worked beautifully! (I won’t say without hitches, but those weren’t the fault of the tutorial.) I had so many little strips of fabric that I had to use my cork board and pin them up in order.

I finally saw the top starting to come together, and I really liked what I was seeing. Once the top was completed, I was at a loss on how to quilt it. I did NOT want the quilting to take away from the top design, so I knew early on I’d probably have to switch out thread and such. But unlike some of my other projects, I swapped out the thread in both the top and in the bobbin. This would make for a colorful design both front and back.

The quilting design came from a sort of challenge from my sister. She was with me at my second craft fair and commented on how I had no other quilting designs except for stipples and loops. She asked if I was capable of anything else. Well, I decided this quilt would be there I showed her what else I could do. I quilted FLAMES!

It took forever.

It’s by far one of my favorite quilts, and I even entered it into my church’s talent show in the craft talents section. Several times I’ve thought about just keeping it for myself, but I’ve kept it up for sale for some reason. I’m hoping someone else can see how much work went into it and can appreciate it for what it is. I do plan on making another one in the future, but I’ll probably cheat and just use a jelly roll next time.

Lesson learned – long live the bargello quilt!