Fractured Bargello Tablerunner . . .

I have decided that now that most of the heavy demolition is done on the house and since we are always in limbo waiting for that dam . . . .  electrician to come, I would spend a little more "me" time while waiting for the next stage in the home renovation process.

So, one of the gals in my Guild taught a class to show us how to do what she calls a "fractured bargello."  She actually does them on sweatshirts but in order to teach us the process, she had us make a tablerunner.

First we had to pick out our focus print.  I chose one by Kaffe Fassett that sort of had beachy colors in it.

Then we had to chose 9-13 batiks in colors that would work with the focus print.  We cut those prints into 1-1/2 inch strips, the width of the fabric and then sewed them together in a strata.  Since I didn't know what a strata was, I looked it up on the internet and the one I found said the fabrics should go from dark to light back to dark.  So, I chose my fabrics, sewed strips and got this ~

Then we cut the first strip for the runner 1-3/4 inches and sewed it down.  Then we added a 3/4 inch strip of focus fabric and sewed it down - the focus fabric is what causes the "fracture."  The next strata strip I cut was 1-1/2 inches and I then un-picked the bottom square and sewed it onto the purple square at the top and sewed it to the fracture strip.  Then another fracture piece and so on until I have the full length.

The gal who taught the class had never taught before so we learned a lot from each other as we went along.  A couple of things we figured out in class:

1.  When doing quilt-as-you-go, it is best if you use a walking foot;

2.  Pin, pin, pin, pin, pin!!  If you look closely, you can see that my first two rows are a little wonky.  Then Susan figured out if we pin the strata row that was already down and then pin the new fracture row on top of that (so you have two layers of pins), the rows stay straighter.  Look how straight rows 3-6 are as compared to the first two wonky rows!!

This is going to be beautiful when it gets done but oh man, it is very, very time consuming!!  I will add a pencil thin border to it and then a narrow border out of the focus fabric with the binding also being the focus fabric.  I am hoping it will finish out at about 18" by 45" to go on my long sofa table.

Then today I made a "hug" block for one of the gals in our Guild who just lost her Mom.  The theme was owls and flowers and the outdoors.  So here is the block I made.  It measures 9" finished. 

I am kinda liking this "me" time!!  Tomorrow is Guild and we are going to show the rest of the group our new tablerunners.  Susan just called and she has her's all done except for a bit more on the binding!!  Smarty Pants!!