Another Argyle Bargello top finished

I just got back from the USA as you know - just over a week ago now. I’ve been hit hard - very hard - with allergies. Because of that I’ve been mostly “staying home with the doors shut” even though the weather has been gorgeous. I do have allergy meds here but I really did get almost flattened while in Florida and then came here to different blooming things. Alas.

But I am gradually getting better and better. I don’t always have problems every year but apparently this year is a bad one for allergies - at least here in Poland AND in central Florida.

So, I have been working on various things here in the house that I had left undone. I had quite a few tops that were quilted but not bound which had been thrown into my sewing room. I worked on getting those done. I worked at an amazing “slow but steady speed” :) LOLOL I just didn’t feel well enough to work at any sort of fast speed or even a long time each day.

I had some fabric I had brought back in my suitcase and because it was for a certain top, I decided not to put it away on my shelves. I was really afraid that I would misplace some of it and then not be able to make the top I had planned. Because of that, I decided to bump that project to the top of my list of quilt tops to work on once I landed—that way I could just put away the leftovers of the fabrics and not the (yard) big pieces of fabrics I brought.

I had chosen these from the blue/greens section of the store. It was kind of a challenge to myself since I really do like these colors - I really do - but not quite as much as someone else I know. The lightest fabric here was taken from the “white” section of the store.

So, argyle bargello, here you are - out of 23 different blue greens from the Quilted Twins store. I ended up ultimately choosing these 20 - in this order.

Pink argyle bargello

Before I start showing you the new one, let me show you the previous one I had made. It was pink. I did quilt this one on my Janome using straight line quilting and med/low loft poly batting.


 

I worked on this new one over the course of several days. Here it is in progress.

It is the same pattern as the pink but in a different color scheme - and the pictures were taken over the period of several days. Click on the arrows to see the progress faster if they don’t move quickly enough for you.

 
 

Here are a couple of closeups of the fabrics themselves. I know - I used what Eileen Wright calls “zingers” - which means fabrics that have a bit of “wow” in them. I did that on purpose.

I decided not to stress too much about getting an exact order of light/dark. I noticed with my pink one that getting a couple of them out of order just added to the charm and didn’t make it unpleasant to look at. You have to make 10 of these strip sets.

Also as I was contemplating which exact fabrics to use, I took out a couple of the darker fabrics I had chosen.

 

I had to evaluate what I liked about my pink one and what I didn’t like about the author’s green one (the cover of the book shown to the left). I decided that I didn’t like the darkness of the author’s quilt. In order to not replicate that, I opted for more lights and mediums and only two very dark fabrics. I had brought over more than 20 fabrics - and eliminated a few of them.

So there you are.

This has been a big project for the week as I’ve been trying to feel better. :) Getting such a beautiful top done did make me feel better. So did staying inside.

:) I was struggling both with jet lag and with the allergies. It’s no wonder I just wanted to chill most of the week.

Actually I had hoped to get to this one while in Florida - but alas…no time. I decided to just choose the fabrics and bring the project back with me.

This is not my pattern, nor is it my book. I am using the pattern from Eileen Wright’s book called More Twist and Turn Bargello. Here’s a link if you want to get the book for yourself. It’s an affiliate link which means if you use this link to buy the book, we get a tiny bit of money from Amazon.

I am so pleased with this one - I may eventually make it again, though not right now. I think I’ll take a break from this pattern for now. I am thrilled with the idea, however, of making a beautiful quilt out of just 20 different fabrics when the “effect” is made by the placement of the lights/darks and sizes of the cuts.

Thank you so much for coming along with me on this journey!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky Petersen9 Comments