Monday 10 February 2014

How Not To Make a Fabric Bowl and Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to PK Sews who has won the remaining ladies from the She Who Sews bloghop! I have emailed you to ask for your address. 

In my last post I showed how not to make a fabric bowl. I am really not good at using bias binding. Despite copious evidence to the contrary I continue to believe I can sew it on both sides at once. Tsk tsk. 
My creation
The photo from my last post is on the right and shows a horrible travesty of stitching where the binding slipped and didn't cover the stitching. On the left shows what happens when you decide to change the stitch you're using. Bodge, bodge bodge. I was notionally using this tutorial so I went back and read it again before again bodging it. Here is what happened. 

I assembled my materials. In this case an epp patchwork piece and a wrapping cloth for the year of the horse we were given when leaving a restaurant last month. It is cotton and I didn't need to wrap anything so I thought I'd repurpose it. 
My creation
Using the friendly dinner plate I cut out my circles, along with a circle of felt - which you can get half metres of at the 100 Yen shops. I sewed the layers together, sandwiching the felt between the wrong sides of the horse and pink fabrics and machine stitched 1/4" from the edge all round. 

I have frequently tried gathering a machine stitch and have every time snapped the thread and been left with a mess. This time I threaded a needle with doubled thread and sewed a running stitch around the edge using the same holes as the machine stitching made and sewing one of my stitches for every two of the machine's. I then gathered and tied off. I then, after some thought, made an important strategic decision. 
Strategic Decisions
I went for hand sewing the binding on BOTH SIDES. I know. Mind blowing. 
My creation
It even kinda worked. With a little more time I dare say the bowl could be coaxed into a circle and the binding is at least neat. Plus this means my 'small' item for the sewing room swap is now finished and thus all sewing for that swap is complete. 

I am going through a big EPP binge at the moment and so I have another project to share - one which I rather suspect I am going to use for the EPP Pouch Swap since my efforts with the blue/grey patchwork have been so consistently dismal. I used some of the 6cm squares I got at the Tokyo Quilt show to make this strip. 
Traditional japanese fabric sewing wallet outside
Having had such an awful time with zips (as well as bias binding) I decided to go full-hand-sewn on the zip. 
P2100007
I added a pin cushion and pouch to the inside.
Traditional japanese fabric sewing wallet inside
And just to prove it is impossible for me to make something right first time, I added a ribbon to the middle to hold reels of thread, using a lobster claw fastener that is too big to go through the centre of any reels, bobbins or other thread holding devices currently in existence. 
No Cats Here. Just a Chicken... With Ears
Well you know. Perfection is an insult to Allah an'all. 

I'll keep trying. 


5 comments:

MarneyMay said...

I am so glad I am not the only one who makes mistakes. Your fabric bowl looks great. Cheers Pauline

jan said...

That is such a cute bowl and CAT! Adorable. xo jan

jan said...
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jan said...
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PURLPOWER said...

Me again dude, just wanted to say I'm really sorry for losing touch over the past year. It's all to do with me not blogging and therefore not clicking on my blog links in the way I used to. I feel bad about it though :-( and was about to put this in an email to you and realised the email address I have for you must be way out of date. So anyway, I've signed up for your blog updates to come directly to my email to prompt me to check back in with ya and am sending you all best wishes, PPx