Bargello, Bargello

My mom came to visit in May. She wanted to watch me make a quilt so she asked me to make her a quilt for her bed. I am going to visit her in early October and will be bringing this beauty in my suitcase:

The top is a bargello pattern with a braided border and stripy binding. We went to Joann's while she was here and she picked out all the fabrics with only a little guidance from me on the type of fabrics and how to match complementary colors and patterns. She really wanted blues and browns. I added in purple and a bit of gray.

  

The bargello came together really fast. I used this tutorial and started with 20 x 3 inch strips. There are about 14 half yards of fabric in the top. I made the braided border using the leftovers from the bargello and any complementary scraps I had. As you may have figured out by now, I make a game out of not wasting fabric and I did really well in that aspect on this quilt. But I will NEVER (well maybe not never ever) make another braided border. It took sooooo long because it can't be chain pieced efficiently. I had to sew one strip on, press it and then add the next one and repeat, boring! The pieces were 1.5 x 4" so it took quite a lot of them to make the border pieces. 

Between the bargello and the border is a bit of Kona navy just to break up all the patterns. The back is a really pretty big print fabric I found at Joann's. It goes well with the front. I added in a strip leftover from making the bargello and framed with more navy.

Close up of the back before quilting

It was quilted pretty simply. I went along the blocks in a diagonal pattern using gold gutermann thread. PS. I quilted this monster with a Singer Simple sewing machine so you can too!

You may have noticed the giant fish in the background of the first picture. Go ahead, I'll wait while you scroll back up..... Ok you back now? For some reason the playground by my house has a bunch of large fiberglass animals around placed at random. This guy is just by the creek. You can understand why I had to take this quilt to the playground and get a fishy photoshoot.

beautiful dahling!

Smizing like a pro

With the last remaining scraps from the braided border I also made two pillows as a surprise. I can't wait to see how this looks on her bed!

Leuko approved!

Close up of the quilting. Love the gold thread on navy.

I hope you all are enjoying the long weekend. I'll post tomorrow about all the sewing I got done this weekend.

I'm linking up with Lily's Quilts small blog meet and fresh sewing day. Go check it out!