Bargello Shirt Workshop

I had a wonderful day today!  The quilt guild to which I belong (Westside Quilters Guild, Hillsboro, OR) offers a wonderful selection of classes and workshops throughout the year.  This month, we branched out a bit and used our quilting skills to create a piece of wearable art.  Here's my creation!

 Our instructor for the day was one of our guild members, Ann Laffin (on right).

I wish I had taken some photos of the project in progress, but I didn't think of it.  I was so engrossed in my project!

We were instructed to bring a shirt or sweatshirt to class, along with strips of 5 different fabrics plus an accent fabric.  I selected a gently used shirt from my husband's closet that he never wears.  Now he's guaranteed not to wear it!  It's over-sized on me and I intend to wear it as a casual jacket.

My fabric strips are from the Winters Grace and Olde World Style collections. 

It's all in the details... I took off the little collar buttons and put them back on when the shirt was embellished.  And I'm very happy with the thin black piping on the sides.

I took the original pocket off the shirt before adding the bargello piece.  But the space that once had the original pocket was not completely covered with the bargello and it bothered me.  So I made a pocket from my scraps and placed it in the original pocket position.  It took almost as long to get this pocket right as it did to make the front panels!  I'm glad I did it, though.  I like the pocket.

Kathy made this shirt.  Really cute!  It's a little hard to see in this photo, but she used gold lame as her accent between some of the strips.  Fancy Schmancy!












This one is a sweatshirt and has a zipper added to the front.

A short-sleeved denim shirt.

Another sweatshirt with zipper.

And this is one of my favorites.  When Ann made this, she used her embroidery machine to add some flowers to the collar and front.  She also did embroidery to the back.  It's really cute.











It was a fun day, I learned a few things, I enjoyed the company of fellow quilters, and I have a COMPLETED shirt/jacket to wear.  Life is good!