Sunday, April 01, 2007

A little evening playtime

Yesterday we spent most of the day in the yard, raking the gravel out of the lawn from a winter's worth of road maintenance and playing in the garden. I got most of the leaf mulch off of my front flower bed and worked in a bunch of compost - now THAT's a spring smell! Our Hyacinths are starting to poke their heads out, but the grass is all still brown.

While we were in Abbotsford I picked up a recent (March/April) Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting magazine - I don't buy many magazines these days, but this one had several things in it I thought I might actually try, so I bought it. It has a great article by Joyce Drexler on coiled fabric bowls that was absolutely irresistible. Once we were in for the evening, I pulled out the cotton clothesline bought at the coast for this and my box of 1" fabric strips. The start of the bowl was a little tricky, but once the base was bigger than the presser foot, things went well. She describes working with an oval bowl for starters - it probably would be easier than the circular one that I wanted to try first.

As you can see, it's a bit of a tight fit for my machine - true to my nature I didn't follow the directions completely and tried a few other things from my basket weaving experience to make the bowl more basket-like, giving it much steeper sides than is really practical given the size of my domestic sewing machine head. A larger bowl base would have made this easier.

The final bowl/basket was made from a full 50 foot roll of clothesline. The base is 6" at the point it starts to curve into the walls, and the whole thing is about 4 1/2" deep, measured by a ruler placed inside the bowl.

It didn't take more than an hour, and I now know that I should use a thread I LOVE as the thread plays a very strong role in the look of the final piece. I guess I'll just have to make another one! *grin*

Oh, and something you can't tell from looking at the photos - these were taken with my new camera, an early birthday gift (Thanks Mom and Dad!). If a camera could take an admiring photograph of itself, this one would. It's a beaut. And just in time to go to MQX with me next week!

Happy stitching,

Lisa

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been wanting to give that a try. I had no idea that it would come together so quickly! Now I'm a little more motivated.

Elaine Adair said...

Wow! I have been wanting to make one of those for months, but ....

Great job! And thanks for the "playtime."

QuiltNut Creations said...

great bowls Lisa. i've wanted to try them too and if they go together that quick, mom just may lose her clothesline lol!!

Lisa said...

Hey - What are you doing up? I thought I was the only one who kept these hours!