Bargello Quilts
I love making bargello quilts. I have made several over the past year— the first one I made I spent every evening after work diligently sewing into the night. There is something very soothing to me about the process, because it is a process: decide on the order of the fabrics, sew, iron, chop, and sew back together. There’s very little decision making to be had after the initial fabric choices, and it’s incredibly easy to get your points to line up. If I could spend one week a month making this quilt for the next ten years I would be happy.
To make a lap quilt (40"x60"):
1 jelly roll with 40-2.5”x42” strips
This pattern requires that there be 2 sets of 20 different colored jelly roll strips. Essentially, you will do this process with one set of 20, and then again with the other set. The two panels are then sewn together to make the full quilt top.
Lay out your fabric sequence as you desire. Take a picture and look at in black and white to get a sense for how it will flow. The blocks will ultimately be small, so don't get too caught up in any large pattern. Lay out all 20 strips in order before sewing. You will get confused!
For each set of 20 strips:
1. Sew your strips together lengthwise. It's easiest to sew them as pairs first, all one direction, then sew the pairs together in the opposite direction. This prevents your seams bowing. Make a good attempt of getting the edges of one side to line up so there's less waste when you square up.
2. Iron your seam allowance, switching direction every other seam. It's easiest to lay the top face down on your ironing board and press two seams outward with your iron at once. See the below diagram.
3. Sew the top and bottom strips together, forming a tube, right sides together. Iron that seam allowance (in the correct direction!). Hopefully you did a decent job of keeping one side of the strips aligned.
4. Square up one side of the tube and cut strips.
*** Very Important ***
*** VERY IMPORTANT ***
YOU MUST HAVE 20 STRIPS AFTER CUTTING
There are 2 sets of 20 jelly roll strips. To continue the sequence between each set, you need the same number of cut strips as there are colors. If you make fewer cuts, your resulting pattern will not repeat and you will have to pay more attention to the order. 20 colors, 20 cut strips, EASY!
The key to cuts is that they should be in 0.25" increments. This makes the transition between each column very smooth. For a 42" jelly roll, the math works out to these cuts:
3, 2.75, 2.5, 2.25, 2, 1.75, 1.5, 1.25, 1, 0.75, 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3, 3.25
See, if the left side of the panel starts with 3", and the right side of the panel ends with 3.25", you can make two identical panels and sew them together to make one continuous bargello pattern. Nice, right?
5.Layout your strips in the size order above. Then, one by one, rip open a seam allowance, shifting one color down each strip. It is extremely easy to get confused here, so it's best to lay it all out and rip open the seams all together before sewing anything.
6. Sew the opened columns together. I find I (for the most part) don't need to use pins because you can just nest seams. However, that skinniest column can be tricky. Iron your seam allowances how ever you'd like, and you're done with the first panel!
Each panel will have a finished size of 30"x40". Use two jelly rolls (and the EXACT SAME PATTERN) to get a larger, 60"x80" quilt.
But Anne, you say. I want a different sized quilt! or, But I don't want to sew a 0.75" column! Well friends, you're in luck.
Click here for my handy Bargello Cut Calculator. It'll do all the math for you for a standard waterfall pattern.