Knit Knotted Scarves

 Pencil Girl sent this photo to me this morning from her 4-H sewing group.
They made these awesome scarves made from old tshirts.

 I immediately replied with "Off with their heads!"
lol
I try not to show faces - especially if I didn't ask permission beforehand. I also rarely post photos of me. Nor do I name people when I post faces. All part of my internet confusion game.

Anyway - aren't these nifty? They cut one inch strips from the bottom of tshirts and knotted them together with a pattern from Linda Lee. Kind of like a big macrame project.

 I also finished this week my (stupid*%$#@&##) hedgehog bags. They have a front zippered pocket with vinyl so you can see inside. I sell them as Lipsense bags in my RunningWithHandmade etsy shop.

I was chatting with another sewing blogger about how someone should make (and photograph) all the ways you can make zipper ends for toiletry pouches for a quick look at BEFORE you sew.

I picked the wrong way - which worked on the first bag. However, the next ones rebelled.
Which started to  make me very grumpy until I sat down with my seam ripper and made them right. 

So, there!

 Hubs is dorking around in the hangar. Making everything onto rolling stock (if it didn't roll before), re-painting walls, generally being crazy. But, both planes do fit inside.

That J-5 (orange) is so almost ready to start it's engine and take it's maiden voyage.

 I made four rope bowls for gifts this last two weeks. Two sewing peoples guilted me into sorting my scrap bin(s) and afterwards, it was a quick grab of the ziploc bag to utilize small scraps in the color I wanted.

 One went to Finland, Two to the UK (with second winging it's way to Ireland), and the final one to my CreativeGirl friend.  I discovered, I had been remiss in making her an orange one (her favorite color). I have one more to make (later, much later) as a gift to another sewing friend. We'll maybe call her MarineGirl.

 We had some 34' nights recently - a little early, so I made haste and cleaned off my back patio, throwing the houseplants into the garage. That frost was a little too close for comfort.

This frog is a particularly ugly lumpy brownish green color - not the cute spring green of my other frogs.

My dear daughter, is on a fall camping trip from Seattle down Highway 101 to Yosimite. She stopped off for a very quick 21 minute visit, hauling our Christmas Present!

 How perfect it is. Got the mountains, the fly fisherman, the river, the floatplane. All etched on ceramic tile and then hand-glazed. One of a kind perfectness. Might be the best gift ever.

This from my daughter who lives in Alaska.
This photo was taken recently on the way to Seward. I just love this picture of the mountains with their dusting of fresh snow and the reflection in the water.

I'm planning to make note cards from this image.

Linking to the 2017 Elm Street Quilts BAG IT event.

Artsy Fartsy Rope Bowl

 I had fun making this artsy fartsy rope bowl. This bowl took the longest at a little less than two hours - only because it involved a little hand sewing!

Those round curly ques (discs) stayed in my brain from the last bowl  and I went for it on this bowl. I wanted a small fruit bowl for my Thanksgiving table to go with my brand new vintage linen tablecloth. I picked out some purple fabric scraps, some purple shades of thread and started sewing.

I wanted to make those discs and either have them flopping randomly around or...
I put in two and didn't like the contrast thread on the one side so I elected to hand-sew them down.

I used small scraps of fabric  - about four inches long by one inch wide. Between organically thinking when to add a fabric scrap and when to add a disc, I was pretty engrossed. I guess I could have done a normal flat-side bowl and then sewn the discs and attached them later, but I am loving the totally organically placed 3-D discs and the whole vibe of this bowl.

I think if I were to sew the discs separately, there would be a temptation to place them evenly  and it wouldn't be as awesome.

I used Ace Hardware's 7/32" thick clothesline. It's got a braided cotton outer surrounding a polyester core. I used a size 14 sewing needle with zero problems. I also cleaned out two more spools of thread as well as five bobbins on this bowl.

This is the same clothesline that Pencil Girl uses to hand-dye rope for me.

This is how I worked the bowl. I used a neutral thread  on the top and colored threads in my bobbin. The great thing about these bowls is you don't really notice the stitching and they are seriously forgiving if you wander off. All I see above is the random color fabric stripes.

I also wanted a shallow bowl. Once I reached 4 inches in diameter on the circle, I tilted it as straight up against my machine as I could for about 10-15 rows. Then I let it drop a bit to make the sides be wider. If you tilt it straight up and over your machine you get straighter sides. At the end I was actually tugging it down to get those sides to widen out.

Once I decided to finish with an extra large disc, I threaded a sewing needle and hand-tacked the discs down flat. Easy peasy.

You could make a dog dish out of this. The discs really show off here.
I definitely had a preference for the discs to be inside the bowl although that was not in my dream design. I find these very freeing. And, like I've mentioned before, very satisfying to be able to finish something stunning so quickly.

I have a trick to get the wrinkles out of tablecloths. No ironing either. Wash/Rinse your cloth and let drain in washer until it's damp. Spread over your table how you like it centered overnight. A little dampness won't hurt your wood table and the cloth dries beautifully with no creases.  If you can wring water out of your cloth, it's too wet and you might damage your wood. Damp.


***To change subjects -- are you tired of these rope bowls yet?Here's a video of Canby, shot by a local resident with a drone camera.
Titled Ode To Canby
by Josh Lee Kwai
Shot October 24, 2016

It starts off with the school fields, Wait Park, Willamette River, Fairgrounds, Canby Cougars (High school sports teams), High School, Flower Farmer Train, Dahlias (Swan Island), Ferry across the Willamette River.

Can You Stand More Rope Bowls

My friend, Pencil Girl, hand dyed some more clothesline for me.
I scored on the styling end as I happened to have some hops and white pumpkins in my kitchen table centerpiece. They offset the autumnal colors of the clothesline perfectly.

 I just love all the random swirls this method of dying creates. She keeps the hank of clothesline intact and uses a tall vase for dying.

I will say, I wasn't as enthused about this orangy and dusty purple combo when she handed it to me. I loved the blue/green combo she dyed for me before, so these colors weren't as exciting to me.

But my friend hand-dyed it for me, so I jumped in and fell in love with the autumnal colors that emerged as I designed as I zigzagged along.

I wanted to do those loopy things again  - for no particular reason.

 There was enough left to do a small saucer which is just darling.

  I had in mind a black & white version and what emerged from the sewing machine is another piece of awesomeness. It doesn't scream black and white as much as my vision but I did a couple of new techniques on this one.

For more color at the top, I did a final round of zigzagging so it shows more.
I also made my three knots looser and just attached them with the sewing machine for a cleaner finish.

I also discovered when turning it inside out, I like the loops inside and I also like the top edge rolled down.

You might say, I have found my groove.
So much fun and quick to do.

If you search for Rope Bowl over on my sidebar (web version - won't appear on the mobile version), you can see all the posts I've done on Rope Bowls.

I am amazed I haven't gotten tired of making these yet. They are super quick to do -- less than two hours, and they come off the sewing machine all different. Very organic designing - very freeing.

Fabric Wrapped Rope Bowl

Complete with threads hanging off.

Benta and Janine challenged me to tackle fabric wrapped clothesline bowls.
I dreamed about it.

A red, white & blue bowl....

Actually, they didn't challenge me. They just thought about it. lol

This is how I start my bowls. I wrap it tight into a spiral and push straight pins in to secure.
This particular rope is a cheap one -- $5 for 100 feet, which will make a good sized bowl. It's cotton braided around a styrofoam core. I didn't have any problems sewing on it but I did use a size 14 needle. Anyhoo, my pins won't pierce the styrofoam so I insert them just enough to grab the cotton bits. The pins help to keep the spiral flat while starting the sewing.

I also put a spot of Fraycheck on the end so it doesn't 'fluff' up. You could use any glue.

I make my spiral about 2 inches in diameter and then zigzag around in tight circles and even going back over the initial circles twice and then start going round and round. It's important to have the tail come off on the right hand side so you can zigzag in a continuous spiral.

 I really didn't want to mess with strips of fabric, getting tangled trying to wrap the cording.
And I was right. It is a bother.

So, in my dreams the other night, my bowl was designed with three rounds each of red, white & blue. With the rest of the bowl being the natural cotton clothesline.

I robbed my scrap basket - no real fabric was harmed in the making of this bowl. However, blue became turquoise, because there is no other color of blue in my scrap basket.

And just plain white up to my fabric strip colors felt wrong, so I switched threads and bobbin and put some red into the bottom of this bowl when the base was still flat.

 I really like my knot finish on this bowl too.   Three stripes, three knots?

 Overall, I like this bowl.    I'm not in love with it though.

It feels unwieldy big. And the contrast between the natural white and the fabric colors is more intense. Just using thread feels more modern and trendy.

I do like how the handles were even set off the top.


I can't say that I'm done with these bowls. They are amazingly fast and give such awesome results. They feed my need to make a craft in my small amount of free time. This fabric wrapped bowl took just over two hours. Just using thread is half the time. Big bang for my creativity.


I still need to trim thread tails and this bowl will go on the completed pile.

 My friend in Japan sent me an awesome t-shirt: SEW Elaborately Days - complete with vintage sewing machine.

Last, but not least, Fabric sale tomorrow in the church parking lot (??!!).
I'm gonna take my bike (3 miles into town) so I can behave myself.
With my tiny biking backpack.

hahaahahahahahahahahaha.