I picked up a kit at Blueberry Line Quilt shop a few years ago. I had it in mind to make it as a gift of valor for my nephew Andy, who is a retired, Wisconsin Army National Guard Major.
The kit traveled with me to several quilt camps but never made the 'doing it' status. About a year ago, I found some batik fabric that I felt would be good backing for the quilt, so then I had everything I needed.
No more excuses for this kit to be ignored.
I had it in my head that this quilt kit was an 'easy' Bargello pattern. I was expecting the directions to have me sewing strips and then hacking them up to create the 'Bargello' effect in the quilt.
The idea of a Bargello quilt is to have long strips of fabric sewn together to create the appearance of movement or waves within a quilt. This can be done with many little pieces or there are techniques where strips or tubes are sewn together to form loops and then these loops are manipulated to make the Bargello pattern design.
I started cutting fabric according to the kit directions. It soon became clear to me, that I had taken on a slow-going, tedious project, with many pieces.
The strips that made up the blue field of this flag-like project fooled me into thinking this was going to go pretty good. I started hanging my finished strips on the design board.
I was getting the idea.
Once I had all the blue strips done, I decided to sew those strips together to see how the construction was going to go; staggering each strip 1/2", to make the 'wave'.
Then I went back to sewing strips. I finally figured out how to string stitch to make creating the strips go a little bit faster.
I kept thinking that there could have been an easier way to do all this piecing, but once the pieces were cut, I was committed.
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The other women at camp were very interested in my project. One woman was chatting with me and after looking at my pattern picture, pointed out that I was supposed to have a red stripe along the bottom edge.
Uffda, that had to be fixed, so I got to spend some time with my favorite seam ripper.
It turned out to be a minor bump in the road. The fabric is quite raveley, which was the biggest problem with reworking.
Once it was fixed, it really improved the look and made the dimensions seem more appropriate. .
Slowly the flag took shape.
It seemed endless.
Several mistakes were make cutting the fabric pieces
and
a few stitching mistakes were make as well.
Finally, the last strip was sewn.
The "ta-da" moment.
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Final display on the design board.
The light and dark fabrics & the staggering if the strips sure does create an illusion of a flag waving in the breeze.
I finished this on Saturday night, it had taken most of Friday & all of Saturday.
I would never have taken this on at home.
It really cut into my normal quilt camp productivity!
But it is nearly finished, yay!
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Today I did my final pressing & seamed the fabric for the backing as well.
I cleaned up all the loose thread on the front but this back is a mess with the fabric unraveling. I snipped as many of the threads on the back as I could stand.
The next step is the long-arm quilter.
I consulted with her about cutting the edges into the curve for binding, she and I agreed that it should be quilted first.
The original pattern called for applique of 13 white stars in a circle, Betsy Ross style. I did not want the quilt to BE a flag, so I decided to skip that step.
I am hoping that my quilter will have a stars & banners pattern that will fill in the blue field with some interest, maybe using a silver thread.
The final step will be for me to cut a gentle curve along the top & bottom edge. Then, it will be ready to bind it with a bias cut binding,
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More to come on this project, but the bulk of the work is done.
Not counting the binding, nor the backing, this project involved 372 pieces.
I am pretty sure that I cut at least 400 pieces due to errors.
It was a real education, beyond what I would have said my abilities were, and I am proud of the result.
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