Bargello Flower Class | Quilts By Jen

Hey Everyone, welcome back to Inspirational Sunday.

The past two days I have been teaching my Bargello flower technique to 13 wonderful ladies up in Midland from the Georgian Bay Quilters Guild. Well, 12 were from the guild and one joined us from Huntsville. This is the first time I have taught the class and I have to say it was a great success. There were daisies, dahlias, roses, sunflowers and a tulip.

There has been inspiration galore for the past two days from my students. It is always a bit nerve wracking to put something new out there and not know how it is going to be received. I have had great reviews of my Sunflower from fellow quilters but these quilters have only viewed the quilt or a photo of the quilt – not actually made a flower with this technique.

The class started with a quick lesson on colour and then the handing out of kits. With a few directions on how to cut up the fabrics and start sewing them together the day was well underway. After sewing and cutting and sewing some more and cutting some more the day came to an end. All were eager to know what time the door would be opened in the morning so they could get on with more sewing to complete the Bargello run.

A few came to say “but this isn’t in the right order, and this is crooked and this just isn’t right” and the standard reply became

That’s okay cause we are just going to cut it up again.

The day progressed and slowly each student completed their Bargello runs and traced out the flower petals onto steam-a-seam. Meticulous placement of the pieces on the Bargello, fusing into place and more cutting.

Then finally the last step of laying out the petals again and creating the flower. The smile and joy on their faces is the best inspiration of all when they see that all the time it took to sew those strips together and cut them up and resew them was worth the effort to create this incredible flower.

This evening I received an e-mail from one of my students who went home and continued stitching around all of the petals as she was on a roll and didn’t want to lose the momentum. Here it is below – what a great job.