Folksy Bowl

Folksy Bowl by Hilary Gooding

A project that my sister and I created by first dyeing a piece of fabric and then fusing on a lot of shapes to create a new piece of cloth. The design idea of the bowl is by Yvonne Perez-Collins from her book Fabric Boxes and Bowls.

Supplies:

Two 14.5” squares of fabric (top and underside)

14” square of Fast2Fuse or Timtex (fusible needed)

4 buttons

Method:

First create your fabric and fuse it to the top of your Fast2Fuse square. I used a complementary colour commercial fabric for the underside which I fused to the underside.

You can applique the shapes and motifs using your favourite method. For the bowl I have satin stitched around all the shapes but I used an open but narrow zigzag to sew the bias strip down.

Then I added some free-machine details like the veins in some leaves, feet and top feathers to the bird. I also used triple-stitching and a couple of embroidery stitches from the library on my machine.

Finally I free-machine quilted with a stipple stitch – you can use your favourite way

Trim the excess fabric back to the 14” Fast2Fuse square.

Now mark out on the underside the four corners of a 4.5” square which is centred on your 14” square. Carefully cut along the diagonal lines from the four outer corners up to the marks of the inner square.

Use a satin stitch to oversew the outer edges of the bowl, sewing down one side of the diagonal cuts and back up the other side, along the top edge and so on till you have all the cut edges covered.

Overlap the corner points and secure by sewing on a button through all the layers.

Of course, you can make the bowl any size you would like and use great commercial or hand dyed fabrics of your own. You can be as creative as you fancy. With the fabric my sister and I created we have plenty more to play with – watch this space!

Feet used:

#15 for free machine quilting

#20C for satin stitching around shapes

#2A for satin stitching the outer edges (my favourite foot!)

#18 for sewing on the buttons