Last week when I was reorganizing and taking stock of my stash I unearthed many fabrics that I felt would make good coiled fabric coasters and bowls. I hadn't made a bowl in over a month so today was the day! A good piece of advice that my friend Margaret gave me back when I first started making bowls was it you aren't sure how it's going to look. before you commit yourself to an entire bowl, make a test coaster. I pulled two fabrics that I felt complimented each other and did just that. It did make a nice coater but I could see that it would be a bit boring as a bowl. The dark print is VERY multi-colored and has a bit of metallic gold in it which not only gave me, a good size palate to choose from but it also is very rich looking. Why not add a little eggplant and blue sapphire so I went digging and digging through my stash and finally found some small scrapes that color...yes!
I spent the ENTIRE day yesterday reorganizing my fabric cubby. It is a unit my husband built me that fits under the basement stairs and is 12" cube, one on tope of the other and 3 deep. I was amazed by the amount of fabric i have and this is not the only storage area I have for fabric. I also found a dicent piece of fabric that I had a small scrape of and said to myself last week, OOh, wish I had a larger piece of that...lo & behold, it was buried up there in the top left cubbie! The bottom center cubbie is what they looked like before I started., As I was finding small pieces of the same fabric in various and sundry locations I of course wanted to put it with the rest of it and found it difficult, especially if it had been placed towards the bottom. Once I had finished for the day and was standing back admire my handiwork it occured to me that if I had a full cubbie the fabric would hold itself up and it would be much easier to pull fabric out of a cubby if the fabric was on it's side. I flipped the fabric over on it's side on the top to left cubbies and could immediately see how this was going to ba a much better way to store my fabric
This past weekend was the North Quabbin's signature 2 day event, the Garlic and Arts Festival. This was the festival's 16th year and my second year as a vendor. It takes a lot of work and planning on my part to get ready for an event such as this. I have been sewing for almost 6 months to have enough inventory to fill up a 10' X 10" space.
To me, there is noting finer than working with batiks. This particular group transports me to an island some wheres in the South Pacific. At the beginning of the summer I had made a quilt as you go wall hanging very similar ro rhe one on the right. It had found a new home and the person who purchased it was a bit disappointed it did not have a matching bowl.
When making fabric bowls there are many things that have to be determined. First and foremost is what fabric am I going to use? How many fabrics am I going to use and where are these fabrics going to appear? Next, how large is this bowl going to be? For me, sometimes the amount of a particular fabric dictates this, sometimes not. Next,, what size rope? I have 3 thicknesses of rope and usually, the larger the bowl, the thicker the rope. Next, the shape of the bowl. Round or oval. Also, is it going to have handles or not. The final decisions is, how steep are the sides going to be. With my new sewing machine I have found making a bowl with steep sides (as close to 90 degrees as possible) virtually impossible which I find rather limiting. I asked my friend Margaret who has been making these bowls longer than I have if she had any suggestions. She suggested I pull on the rope in an upwards direction which I am stitching it which I tried out. It healed a bit but was VERY difficult to stitch and also to control. I got up this morning determined to try to come up with a technic for making steeper angled sides.
This was day #3 working with this particular group of fabrics. The first thing I made back on Monday was a table runner. Yesterday I made 2 hot pads and several balsam sachets and a pillow. I knew when I spotted these fabrics in the store they were going to make a wonderful addition to my Fall collection and they did not let me down! They last thing I made was the fabric bowl. The experience of making this bowl was far different than the first one since I was using the open toed foot and the detachable sewing table. I cannot say enough about the quality of the stitch this machine makes. Since I had the open toed foot on I could see EXACTLY where I was sewing and did not have to go back over fixing gaps.. Also, having the table there made my life so much easier maintaining a uniform angle on the sides. I found out today why I purchased this machine.
Yesterday I posted a photo on Facebook of a small purse and my friend Margaret asked me if I had make it with my new machine...No. I finally finished the binding of it by hand but had made the main body of it before i had gone on vacation in the Poconos where I had purchased my new machine. The VERY first thing I made with my new machine were a couple of baby bibs...thought it was a good idea to start out small. Since I had sold several bibs at the Shelburne Arts Co-op in August, more were needed. I had set myself to a few weeks ago to start using up my stash and had pulled out this jeweled toned floral/butterfly fabric thinking it would make a nice market bag. I had also found a matching dark batik whic.would make nice side connectors and straps. Also in my stash was a decent amount of this blue butterfly batik - PERFECT to use for the lining. Now all I needed were two coordinating fabrics for the pockets. I found a purplish/fuchsia fabric that not only looked nice with the anchor fabric but it too had a butterfly theme. I also had a bit of this blue fabric left over from another market bag and YES, there was enough of it for the side pockets
YUP, I have a brand spanking new sewing machine. It is a Brother NX 2000. It is completely computerize and one communicates with it via a touch screen. Being that I am not the most computer savvy person, this was a big step for me to take not only financially but also tech wise. I few week ago I went to a fiber arts show. The show was machine quilted wall hangings. I saw some very lovely work and realized that with my current machine, I would have not been able to produce the same work that these artists had.
A couple of weeks ago I decided I have too much fabric in my stash so I have set myself to make only items that use my stash up. NO NEW FABRIC unless is is necessary to coordinate it with a stash fabric to make items for the Garlic and Arts Festival, which is the last weekend in September. I went a step further today. This little purse to the left was a small wall hanging this morning. I made it several years ago and it has never sold. I turned it into a purse today. I had two fat quarters of the black print in my stash. It did make up into a very nice little purse.
Holy cow...where did this month go to? One of the reasons that there has not been an update on the blog is that I have been toO busy to do it. Many items sold in June from Mainely Quilts in Kennebunk Maine so there has been a flurry of sewing to replenish stock. I have also set myself to use mostly fabrics from my stash purchasing only coordinating fabrics in order to make a specific item. This is what brought me to make this braided table runner - all fabrics from my stash! I had made a braided runner MANY years ago and went searching for the instructions I had used in a sewing magazine to no avail. I looked at some pictures out on the web of braided quilts and said..."I can figure that out".
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Last week when I was reorganizing and taking stock of my stash I unearthed many fabrics that I felt would make good coiled fabric coasters and bowls. I hadn't made a bowl in over a month so today was the day! A good piece of advice that my friend Margaret gave me back when I first started making bowls was it you aren't sure how it's going to look. before you commit yourself to an entire bowl, make a test coaster. I pulled two fabrics that I felt complimented each other and did just that. It did make a nice coater but I could see that it would be a bit boring as a bowl. The dark print is VERY multi-colored and has a bit of metallic gold in it which not only gave me, a good size palate to choose from but it also is very rich looking. Why not add a little eggplant and blue sapphire so I went digging and digging through my stash and finally found some small scrapes that color...yes! 
This past weekend was the North Quabbin's signature 2 day event, the Garlic and Arts Festival. This was the festival's 16th year and my second year as a vendor. It takes a lot of work and planning on my part to get ready for an event such as this. I have been sewing for almost 6 months to have enough inventory to fill up a 10' X 10" space.
To me, there is noting finer than working with batiks. This particular group transports me to an island some wheres in the South Pacific. At the beginning of the summer I had made a quilt as you go wall hanging very similar ro rhe one on the right. It had found a new home and the person who purchased it was a bit disappointed it did not have a matching bowl.
When making fabric bowls there are many things that have to be determined. First and foremost is what fabric am I going to use? How many fabrics am I going to use and where are these fabrics going to appear? Next, how large is this bowl going to be? For me, sometimes the amount of a particular fabric dictates this, sometimes not. Next,, what size rope? I have 3 thicknesses of rope and usually, the larger the bowl, the thicker the rope. Next, the shape of the bowl. Round or oval. Also, is it going to have handles or not. The final decisions is, how steep are the sides going to be. With my new sewing machine I have found making a bowl with steep sides (as close to 90 degrees as possible) virtually impossible which I find rather limiting. I asked my friend Margaret who has been making these bowls longer than I have if she had any suggestions. She suggested I pull on the rope in an upwards direction which I am stitching it which I tried out. It healed a bit but was VERY difficult to stitch and also to control. I got up this morning determined to try to come up with a technic for making steeper angled sides.
This was day #3 working with this particular group of fabrics. The first thing I made back on Monday was a table runner. Yesterday I made 2 hot pads and several balsam sachets and a pillow. I knew when I spotted these fabrics in the store they were going to make a wonderful addition to my Fall collection and they did not let me down! They last thing I made was the fabric bowl. The experience of making this bowl was far different than the first one since I was using the open toed foot and the detachable sewing table. I cannot say enough about the quality of the stitch this machine makes. Since I had the open toed foot on I could see EXACTLY where I was sewing and did not have to go back over fixing gaps.. Also, having the table there made my life so much easier maintaining a uniform angle on the sides. I found out today why I purchased this machine. .jpg)
Yesterday I posted a photo on Facebook of a small purse and my friend Margaret asked me if I had make it with my new machine...No. I finally finished the binding of it by hand but had made the main body of it before i had gone on vacation in the Poconos where I had purchased my new machine. The VERY first thing I made with my new machine were a couple of baby bibs...thought it was a good idea to start out small. Since I had sold several bibs at the Shelburne Arts Co-op in August, more were needed. I had set myself to a few weeks ago to start using up my stash and had pulled out this jeweled toned floral/butterfly fabric thinking it would make a nice market bag. I had also found a matching dark batik whic.would make nice side connectors and straps. Also in my stash was a decent amount of this blue butterfly batik - PERFECT to use for the lining. Now all I needed were two coordinating fabrics for the pockets. I found a purplish/fuchsia fabric that not only looked nice with the anchor fabric but it too had a butterfly theme. I also had a bit of this blue fabric left over from another market bag and YES, there was enough of it for the side pockets
YUP, I have a brand spanking new sewing machine. It is a Brother NX 2000. It is completely computerize and one communicates with it via a touch screen. Being that I am not the most computer savvy person, this was a big step for me to take not only financially but also tech wise. I few week ago I went to a fiber arts show. The show was machine quilted wall hangings. I saw some very lovely work and realized that with my current machine, I would have not been able to produce the same work that these artists had. 
A couple of weeks ago I decided I have too much fabric in my stash so I have set myself to make only items that use my stash up. NO NEW FABRIC unless is is necessary to coordinate it with a stash fabric to make items for the Garlic and Arts Festival, which is the last weekend in September. I went a step further today. This little purse to the left was a small wall hanging this morning. I made it several years ago and it has never sold. I turned it into a purse today. I had two fat quarters of the black print in my stash. It did make up into a very nice little purse. .jpg)
Holy cow...where did this month go to? One of the reasons that there has not been an update on the blog is that I have been toO busy to do it. Many items sold in June from Mainely Quilts in Kennebunk Maine so there has been a flurry of sewing to replenish stock. I have also set myself to use mostly fabrics from my stash purchasing only coordinating fabrics in order to make a specific item. This is what brought me to make this braided table runner - all fabrics from my stash! I had made a braided runner MANY years ago and went searching for the instructions I had used in a sewing magazine to no avail. I looked at some pictures out on the web of braided quilts and said..."I can figure that out".