Blogger's Quilt Festival: Bargello Quilt

Hi all! Some of you may recognize this quilt, which made a cameo in this post about my cathedral windows pillow. But I didn't mention a thing about it! So, with the Blogger's Quilt Festival here, I thought it would be a good time to share a bit of its history :)

This quilt began years ago, when I was intrigued by a book my mother had purchased on slanted bargello strip quilting (you can find it here). I came up with a design loosely based on one of the quilts in this book.

I slowly made my way through piecing parts of it together, and then slicing it into long, skinny strips to sew into a quilt. Well, I eventually realized that I had not remembered to add SEAM ALLOWANCES when I cut! Novice mistake. Tsk tsk. So, I had to alter my pattern (I like it better now anyway!) and cut out more strips.

I don't remember how long that took me, but fast forward to the summer before senior year of college - which is when I finally got around to finishing piecing all those long strips together! I hand stitched straight lines in the quilt, echoing the directions of the angled strips. Man, that took forever!! You can see some of it in this picture:

In the summer after graduation, I gave it to my (then fiancé) husband, as a gift for his new apartment.

This quilt marks my foray into modern quilting - I really love black and white, so I feel like it really expresses me. My favorite part about this quilt is the section of really thin (quarter inch) strips that jut up.

I used Adobe Illustrator to design this quilt, but the book gives a really excellent tutorial on how to design with pencil and paper - if you like this look, I highly suggest purchasing this book! Just don't forget to add the seam allowance :) And here's a few more pics, just for looks: