Baby Bargello

After returning from my two-tournaments-lots-of-rain softball trips at the end of February and start of March, I knew I needed to get a baby quilt cranked out for the kid my brother and sister in law were expecting.

I had picked up a Baby Bargello kit at The Quilt Company on one of my previous trips up there. Karen, the owner, is an evil genius. I have trouble walking out of that store without a new kit on pretty much ANY trip to TQC. But I digress.

Right before the Hubster’s shoulder surgery, I got the kit cut out and started sewing. I vastly underestimated how much time the Hubster was going to require after his surgery, so I presented a basted-but-not-quilted gift at Erin’s baby shower.

I finally finished the thing last weekend.



Because I knew that doing a traditional binding on this quilt would leave me stuck in the land of needing to finish yet another hand-sewing project, I put a faux binding on the top (I sewed a 1” strip of an appropriate stash fabric on all sides of the top) and quick-turned the thing through a hole I had basted in while piecing the backing. Easier to show you than explain, but there you go.



Of course, I had just assumed that I had all the appropriate backing flannel in my stash. That wasn’t quite true, so there’s a square of plain white flannel on one corner of the back. Oops.

I tried to quilt this on my Brother 1500, but after roughly a week of not being able to quilt for more than about 18” between thread breakage, I resisted the impulse to throw the damn machine out the window, switched over to my Bernina 150QE and finished the whole thing in an hour or two.



It has now been turned over to Ellie, my niece. Here’s hoping it’s dragged through the mud and puked on for years to come.