A tisket a tasket, a red and yellow basket (and green and white)...

I was quilting downstairs in my lurkim, doing some custom work on a new customer's project, when I said to myself, "Self, I need a new project to use some of my time up when I'm letting the IQ run for these wreaths."  I looked around, and lo and behold! there was a long strip of 1 1/2" x 40" fabrics that I had sewn together in the hopes of doing a cloth bowl some day.  My friend, Mary, had given me this honey bun of fabrics as a challenge over a year ago, and I had attempted to make the bowl once and had given up in frustration.

However, having succeeded with the Bali Bowl project a few weeks ago, I was armed with renewed self confidence and decided to tackle it again.  The difference was, though, that these strips were only 1 1/2" wide, whereas my Bali Bowl strips were 2 1/2" wide but folded over to give me 1 1/4" with no raw edges.

Susan S from my guild had shown a lovely bowl she had made using the raw edge technique, so I thought I would try that out and add little handles.  The wrapping of the clothesline went without a hitch, as did the sewing, although I did have to be careful not to get that raw edge caught under the presser foot.

About four hours later, here's the end result.  What I learned from this project was 1) I needed to have a wider base for this bowl, and 2) I sewed too many rows AFTER the handles were made.  So this is just a prototype, not good enough to be on display, but useful nonetheless for holding odds 'n' ends under the bathroom sink.  I'll make another one later this week, using my lessons learned.