Bargello Quilt Tutorial
One of my friends made a quilt last year using Fig Tree Quilt’s Strawberry Fields Revisited fabric line and as soon as I saw it I knew I needed that fabric. I bought two jelly rolls but didn’t have any plans in mind on how I would use them. I pulled the jelly rolls out over the winter and decided to make a simple bargello quilt; I had made a similar quilt years ago and I love the design!
A bargello quilt is a very easy quilt to make and there are lots of different layout options – you can vary the width of the strips for an optical illusion effect or arrange the fabric so the colors zig-zag back and forth. I kept mine nice and simple and used a diagonal layout. Jelly rolls are great for this type of design since much of the initial cutting is already done for you.
I started by arranging the strips from one jelly roll out on my table in an order that I liked, there were lots of red and brown prints in this collection so I separated those into two different sections and tried to keep 4-5 strips for each color section. Since I used a jelly roll I had a total of 39 strips (I removed one piece of fabric that was a solid white and kept just the prints). Once you have a layout you’re happy with you can sew all the strips together.
The key to making a bargello quilt is making sure you press the strips properly; you want to make sure you press towards every other strip and don’t press them all in the same direction. If you press towards every other strip then it helps nest the seams later and allows the quilt to lay better. An easy way to keep track is to number the strips and press towards the even numbered strip. Numbering the fabric will also help you later in the process.
Once you have all of the strips pieced and pressed together you need to sew the two end strips together in order to make a large tube. Place the tube on your cutting table and make sure it lays flat, depending on the size of your table you may have to fold the tube in half. The selvage ends will likely not align but you want to make sure the top and bottom of the strips are as straight as possible.
Cut off the selvage ends of one side to square up the piece and then cut the tube into 2 ½” strips. You should be able to get 16 or 17 strips from one jelly roll tube. If you are using two jelly rolls you will need to repeat the above steps with the 2nd roll.
To start piecing the quilt top you will need to un-sew the seam between two pieces of fabric, I started with the seam between the first and last piece of fabric from my strip set (Fabric #1 and #39 in my case). This strip will be your first row. You will then need to remove the seam between fabric #1 and fabric #2 for your second row. Seam #2 and #3 for the third row, and so on. Sew rows 1 and 2 together, I use pins at every seam to make sure that they line up properly. If all the seams were pressed towards the even numbered row then they should nest together well. Once row 1 and 2 are sewn together press the seam towards row one.
You will need to repeat this process for the remaining strips and sew the rows together.
Row 4 – Remove the seam between fabric 3 and 4
Row 5 – Remove the seam between fabric 4 and 5, etc.
This is an easy pattern to adjust the size for; each strip will finish at 2”. Since I used 39 strips from a jelly roll my quilt is 78” long. I used two jelly roll strips sets and was able to get 33 strips (16 strips from one set and 17 from the other), my width is 66”.
Easy, right?! Bargello quilts are a quick and fun way to use up some of those jelly rolls that you have gathering dust in the closet. If you’ve made a bargello quilt that you would like to share I’d love to see it! If you have any questions or suggestions let me know in the comments. Happy quilting!