Chartreuse Cheater Bargello

Striped fabric that does all the work

This past Spring, I visited several of our affiliate quilt shops to purchase gift certificates for the UFO Exchange, including The Nimble Thimble, down in Gilroy. While checking out, I spotted a fabulous Bargello quilt hanging behind the cash register that featured a batik stripe instead of piecing strip sets. I asked the shop owner for her permission to photograph and was on the search for striped fabrics that I could recreate my own cheater Bargello quilt.

Once all my summer quilt challenges were done and submitted, it was time for a quick, easy and relatively simple project that wouldn't require as much brain power. So I pulled out some of the striped fabrics and went to work trying out my Cheater Bargello quilt and decided on this mostly chartreuse stripe with little bursts of color adjacent to the black bands.

Staggered strips creating the Bargello effect

The yardage was stitched into a large tube that was then sliced into strata strips. Scissors were then used to cut open each tube to stagger the top and bottoms to create the Bargello look.

The top was pieced and pin-basted in just a few hours...easy peasy! But how best to quilt such a simple top?!?

I added a pop of color to the black bands stitching my favorite figure 8's using a Ramses Red King Tut variegated thread by Superior Threads. I am amazed at how it really transformed the overall quilt top and added a bit of warmth to the stark black bands!

When it came time to the chartreuse bands, I ran out of ideas and tucked the quilt away into my UFO pile until this past weekend when I was looking to wrap up a few UFOs before the end of the year.

I just started with the center yellow band and stitched in some chain of pearls that were then bounce echoed across one strata set. Seeing the bounced echoes reminded me of the flowers that were stitched in alternating rows just to mix things up.