My fuzzy little basket

This past Wednesday Vanessa taught several of us in the guild how to do raw-edge cloth covered clothesline baskets.  They are a little fuzzy because the cut edges of the fabric are manipulated while wrapping the clothesline and start fraying.  That can be cute.  I prefer not, so I trimmed the longest threads to make it look a little tailored.

Vanessa showed us a variety of ways of finishing the basket.  I tried the loopies -- kinda fun to do and not as hard as I feared initially.  My bowl had a finished circumference of 24", so I spaced my loopies 4" apart.  You can make them closer together, and it looks like the top of the bowl is pique.

I have alot of fabric left over, so I'm going to make some coasters, too.  All the fabrics from the bowl and the coasters are scraps from my Tree of Life quilt, which I will show you when it's finished being quilted.

Just as follow up to my very flat tire, above is the odd looking piece of metal that DH removed from the tire.  It looks like a staple but is actually a twist from the top of a barb wire fence that I must have picked up on the road somewhere.  I was about three months away from buying new tires anyway, so now my car is almost all fixed up.  It still needs the new muffler put on that's been sitting in the garage for months, though.  I wonder if that will ever happen.  I mean, in my lifetime....

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.