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.

Autumn Table Runner

 I survived matchstick quilting.

 Surfing the internet, I stumbled across Cynthia Frenette's blog and she had a free pattern for a table runner. She used matchstick quilting - that's just quilting lines about a 1/4" apart, mostly parallel with a curvy twist at the end of the table runner.

It was very pretty.
It seemed simple enough....

 It only took all day Sunday.

After about 30 parallel lines, I was ready to free motion quilt (FMQ) this piece. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how FMQ got started. Some dorky sewist trying to think she can quilt, realizing very quick she hates quilting repetitious lines that never end. She veered off the 'pattern' and started free-wheeling that sewing machine like nobody's business.

I used scraps and stash for this table runner. Most of the low-volume background is from Sweetwater's Road 15 fabrics. See? A tiny bit of quilting and I start spouting out quilting lingo: Low volume!

For this table runner to work, the background colors are all low-key, light, neutral. The berries and the leaves are almost primary loud colors.

 This measures up about 40" long x 10" wide.

The background colors are all pieced together with the berries and leaves ironed on top with wonder-under (fusible web). The matchstick quilting is helping to keep those small pieces attached. Cynthia had you start with parallel lines of quilting and then veer off in a curve towards the end - following the lovely stem curve. The entire table runner is bound with bias tape ( I cut mine straight).


Even though this took all day to sew - with many breaks to keep my sanity - this was an easy sew.   A very pretty sew for Autumn.

 I can now tick matchstick quilting off my bucket list.

{ I  dislike quilting.}

Cool Coffee Table

My son had a vision. A creative vision. He wanted to get a glass top for this coffee table and place beer caps underneath. He found the table for two bucks and set about collecting beer caps. This took a few weeks (college student).

 I came up with the nine-patch design and he also wanted to incorporate his snowboarding sticker collection. The glass top idea was ditched and another design was hatched.

 My son asked if I had some webbing/netting to place under the table to hold remotes. Nevermind that I was knee-deep in Christmas preparations, sewing gifts that needed to be done,  and a crazy work schedule - not to mention the baking.  I jumped to attention and sewed some double-fold bias tape around the edges, and placed grommets at the corners.
Well - actually - I was about the change the serger thread and it still had black thread cones on - so I quickly zipped this out. I think this originally came from a trampoline? but I found the material at a garage sale.

 

The tedius job of drilling holes for the beer caps was started.
Then straightening the caps a bit so they would drop down into the holes.

 Figuring out patterns.

 First coat of varnish.

 Each sticker had to be carefully set-in before the beer caps were dropped into the hole.

 Tape around the edges to keep varnish from dripping. Clean edge. This table rocks.

I want one. I may have to buy it off him.

This is like the ultimate I Spy coffee table.