Monday, December 31, 2012

Tessellating Butterfies Quilt and Pink Fairy /Rail Fence Blocks


Pink and green tessellating Butterfly Baby quilt


I have completed the machine quilting and the binding on my little butterfly baby quilt.  It has turned out to be quite a sweet looking little quilt and although I did say at the time that I would never make this pattern again, LOL, I think I just might give it another whirl in the future (now that I know what I'm doing. :)


Wonder how it would look in blues and browns???

I am also currently still working on the bottom half of my Diamonds Jubilee Bargello quilt, (which I really love!) but I gave it a rest for a bit while I started work on another pink and mauve quilt top for another baby girl arriving in January to a cousin of my step-daughter. (Just an excuse to work on another one. 😉)

This little number is quite simple to make. It's a combination of strip sets and some fairy fabric blocks interspersed.  It gave me the opportunity to use up some of the leftover pink fabric from the butterfly quilt along with some new fat quarters.




The blocks are 7 1/2 inches square before they are sewn together. I cut the strips 2 1/4 inches wide and sewed 4 strips together in sets. Then I crosscut the strip sets in 7 1/2 inch lengths to complete the block.

I had a fat quarter (18X21" fabric) of pink fairies from which I wanted 8 or 9 squares (depending on how I decided to arrange them with the strip blocks.) Unfortunately it wasn't enough to cut them all 7 1/2 inches square, so I decided to cut them smaller (5 1/2" square) and make a pink border around the outsides. After doing the math I figured out I needed to cut pink strips 1 1/2 inches wide, taking into account the seam allowances, to make the finished blocks 7 1/2 inches square like the strip blocks.

After that I arranged all the blocks on the floor in 3 different arrangements to see which one I liked best.
After a short consultation with my hubby, I decided on the pattern below:

Pink and Mauve Fairy baby quilt blocks

Then I sewed all the blocks together and now I am putting the borders on. :)

I have decided to make a narrow white border around the outsides of the blocks and then a 2 1/2 or 3 inch outer border. (I don't want to make it too wide or I'll have a problem with the back fabric which is only 42 inches wide.)

Then there is still the question of what to use for the binding....


Happy quilting!

Pattern reject: I removed the green strips and replaced them with pink ones...


Thursday, December 13, 2012

Bargello Diamonds Jubilee Quilt Top -Top Half is Done!


December 12/12
I finally finished sewing together all 53 rows of the top half of my Diamonds Jubilee bargello.

At our last Quilt Class on Tuesday I started cutting out the little tiny labels and began pinning them on the fabric strips for  the bottom half.
Much more work to come....

Rows 1 to 49 of my top half 



Side view





Diamonds Jubilee Bargello - the Beginning

Rows 1 to 10 (out of 53 rows) of the top half of the Diamonds Jubilee Bargello

Making this Diamonds Jubilee Bargello quilt is the hardest thing I have ever made!

Altogether there are, what, almost 3000 pieces?!!  This is a Nancy Smith Bargello design which apparently is a different method of creating a Bargello than the usual.
Nancy Smith has broken down all the steps to making this quilt, and following her directions makes it (almost) foolproof. Well, okay, not exactly. :)

For your first Bargello quilt, I would highly recommend taking a class where the instructor can give you some time saving (frustration-avoiding) tips, which is what I am doing.
Strips set of fabrics # 1 to 11

It requires 11 different fabrics for the body of the Bargello and then 3 more for the borders, although that is entirely optional. There is a huge amount of cutting of strips, sewing them into strips sets (strata), then cross cutting the strata into various widths and labeling them in piles according to which strata they are. Some strata are made from all 11 fabrics, the majority are made up of fabrics #2 to 11, though. There are also various numbers of other strata , fabrics #4 to 11 only, 6 to 11, and even some squares cut from  single strips.  Sound complicated?   It gets worse. :)

A diagram of all 11 of the fabrics numbered from fabric 1 to 11 to keep them straight during this whole process



A few of the many strata needed for this Bargello design

After cross-cutting, there are 4 pages of tiny squares to re-label various strips to make up the 53 rows of the Bargello design. Nancy has made these tiny labels in sequential order according to the order that you had cross cut your strip sets.

Crosscutting the strata into various widths

Each pile is labelled according to types of strata, width of pieces and  2 sets are made, one for the top half of the quilt and one for the bottom half.


Now time to get familiar with your seam ripper! Most of these strips that you so carefully sewed and pressed, now get taken apart according to the label directions. Some end up in little chunks with a separate label on each. Some squares get 'tossed' (not used); some strips get reversed (turned upside down and labelled. )

Now they have to be sorted according to which row they belong in. Nancy Smith has that info written on each tiny label. I didn't have room for 53 separate rows of fabric strips in my craft/ computer room so I decided to 'bag' all the rows 20 to 29 together, bag all the 30s in another bag, then the 40s and 50s.
Rows 1 to row 19 were in piles on my desk and ironing board.

Rows are bagged according to numbers,  one bag has all the 30s rows in it,  one has all the 40s and the last has all the 50s.


Oh, I forgot to mention that you are only working on the top half of the rows of your Bargello at this point. Once all 53 rows are sewn together, you will work on the bottom half which is the mirror image and eventually those two halves get sewn together to complete the whole quilt top...

I have been working diligently since November 6 on sewing these strips together and I love how the pattern started emerging!

It is so gorgeous, if I do say so myself. :)

More photos to follow....

(To see the end product months later, follow the link below:)



Happy quilting,
Carola