Fabric bowls...

Two fabrics + 80 feet of clothesline = Fabric Bowl

We were invited to a friend's 50th birthday celebration. I knew I wanted to make Leesa something, but what? As it worked out, I was able to wrap each of the two fabrics two ways which gave me a four-level range of gradation. When I purchased the fabric, I was thinking of mimicking a zebra pattern. I knew, a few rounds in to the base, it probably wasn't going to succeed. But I kept on, lightening the black/white balance until the top four rounds which were my darkest tone.

Made from 2011 BOM Batiks

A few days later (I think that was last night) I started my own bowl. Months ago when I was working on my BOM batik quilt, I saved .5-inch wide strips intending to make a fabric bowl someday. This was also before I took the class. From the background color fabrics, I cut the supplied 3-inch wide strips down to 2.5 inches. I started with the dark tones, worked into the middle and light tones, and finished with more dark strips.

Paper piping ready to be wrapped

Instead of using clothesline, I tried out some paper piping cord. I bought this stuff decades ago when I was sewing spa and makeup bags from vinyl-laminated fabric—it was c.1988-1991. One thing I really liked about using this piping is that it is on a spool so unwinds easily with no tangling or twisting. I LIKE. I worked directly from the spool; wrapped the cord at the sewing machine; then stitched a bit and wrapped some more. I like the shape of this one—a little curvy and a turned down lip. Got this one done mid-afternoon.

More Giardiniera

I've been wanting to make something special for a young friend of mine from the same fabric as my Lemon Pepper Poppy Quilt. I cut mostly .75-inch strips from the remnants and arranged them into a pattern I liked. This wound up being another bowl with a 6-inch base (as were the two previous ones above) with a slightly turned under lip. I loved it for her! And she loved it, too!

I've got a couple more bowls to make for friends and family while I'm still in the bowl-building groove.

from The Gourmet Yarn Co.

Two weeks ago, I took a class at The Gourmet Yarn Co. on knitting the Spectra Scarf designed by Stephen West. Owner Margaret Schroeder taught the class. It was a sluggish start but after two hours, we all got the hang of it. I've been working on it off and on and am pretty pleased so far. The only part I didn't like was finding a mistake I couldn't live with 70 rows back. Yup. A big part of knitting is fixing mistakes. I'm getting better at it. I pulled the 70 rows; managed to get all the stitches back on my needles; and am now back about where I was before. I've learned a couple of things through this project. First, I've been purling incorrectly for years. I was throwing my yarn the wrong direction and twisting my loops. Ugh. And two, with long sessions of knitting, I've much improved my hand positioning/use and cut down of lots of extra repetitive motion. I am only about 25% done, so there's lots to do. It takes a certain kind of faith/folly to knit in the summer on 113˚ days while dreaming of cooler temps down the road.

Tosh Merino Light (Ruby Slippers) and Crazy Zauberball

I fell in love with this scarf when I first saw it on TGYC's Facebook page in a near-Cherokee Red and blues/gray variegated yarns. They were out of the red when I bought my supplies, so I chose a plum and orange/taupe/gray/purple variegated yarns. I still think I'd like to do a red one that will remind me of Fallingwater's tower of windows.