Bargello Quilt on the Cutie Frame

After practicing on my new Cutie frame for months, I decided that if I was ever going to be quilting (and not practicing), then I needed to just get to it. I decided to try my hand at quilting a few small place mats on the frame, using my new Q’nique 19 long arm machine.

On my practice sandwich, I had quilted swirls, loops, stippling, pebbles, and feathers. I found that the swirls and loops were turning out much better than stippling, pebbles and feathers. So, to prepare for my actual quilt, I quilted several place mats using stippling, pebbles and feathers before going back to my safe zone–loops and swirls. The loops and swirls turned out to be very cute they were better every time I practiced. Therefore, I felt confident to move on to a real project…my latest quilt top

Barging into a Bargello

I always wanted to tackle a bargello. The bargello was a design style that I had never tried but which appealed to me and I wanted to tackle one. The simplicity of small colored blocks becoming something complex and evoking motion seemed compelling. Several years back, I recalled a bargello on Pinterest that really appealed to me. I remembered this inspirational piece had a break in the wave of the bargello pattern. I decided that I would do something similar.

So, out came the paper and pencil. I sketched out my initial wave and added a few random breaks in the pattern. Once I had a partial design in mind, I entered the ideas into Electric Quilt.

Using the draft drawing out of Electric Quilt, I shopped my stash and found the perfect batik roll and some white yardage. Next I cut the white yardage into strips that matched the width of the batiks. Then I sewed the strips of the batiks and the white that would become the background.

With all of the strips sewn together, I cut my columns out in the appropriate widths. Finally, I cut long white strips to become my “interruptions” in the wave. All that remained was to carefully match up my columns to follow the pattern of the wave and sew this together.

Onto the Cutie Frame

After putting the sandwich together and carefully pin basting, my bargello was ready to be hooped and quilted. I decided to “float” the quilt on the Cutie frame this time. I wanted to be certain that the columns did not get twisted by being rolled up and strapped to the belly bar.

Because of the interrupted wave and the sweeping watery wave of this quilt, I decided to quilt it with large loops and swirls. I used a soft grey thread that disappeared into the quilt. This quilting and thread complemented the bargello nicely.

Once complete, the quilt needed a name and the most appropriate name seemed to be “Interrupted Waves”.

Interrupted Waves is one of my favorite quilts to date. The colors and the satisfaction of using a new technique and designing this original beauty gave me great pleasure.