Steps to making a bargello quilt top:
This is a continuation of our earlier article on bargello quilts.
1- Cut each fabric into 45-inch cross-grain strips. For wall-hanging, I suggest to the strips to be 2 inches wide plus .5 inch for seam allowance.
2- Arrange the strips into the most desirable flow that you want each peaks and valley to look. This is a crucial part to determine how to colors work together and how each group will transit.
3- Sew them together, quarter-inch seam allowance. Now you should have a square patch of sewn strip. If you select 20 different fabric, you should have a 40 in. x 40-45 in. in measurement.
4- You can either cut this in half across all the strips or construct another one just like that (I suggest to construct another one just like that).
5- Iron the 2 patches, both patches will have all the seams go in one direction, however, the direction of each patch MUST BE IN OPPOSITE OF EACH OTHER. For example, patch One will have all the seams go from color group of green to color group of yellow, the other must have all the seams to go from yellow to green. This will ensure the seams butting each other flat when the squares are sewn together (they will be sewn together like in the nine-patch pattern.
6- For each patch, sew the 2 strips by the edges together to create a cylinder or a tube. Cut off the uneven edges on both ends of the tubes and ready to assemble the final product.
7- Cut the cylinders perpendicular to the sewn strips into many thinner cylinders. Remember to alternate between the 2 patches. You will have to decide how wide or narrow each thin cylinder will be since this affects how the quilt’s peaks and valleys will look. If your original strips were all 2.5 inches (this by now should be on 2 inches wide after you sewed them all together), you cross- grain cut of the tubes should be anywhere from 1 inch to 3.5 inches. A variety will give your quilt a more interesting look. Thinner cut will give you sharper, pointier peaks, wider cut will give you softer, more gradual climb of the hills or valleys.
8- Opening your tubes into strips by taking one seam on each tube. Which seam to take off depends on how you want your bargello moves. Pick one fabric as your focal point and decide how that fabric will move. If you want it to move up, open the next tube by one seam lower than the first one.
9- Sew these strips together and now, congratulation on your new Bargello quilt top.