Fabric Bowls

I belong to a textile group called Nest of Makers - who are a very friendly bunch.  We get together and sometimes we do our own thing and sometimes we have a skill sharing session.  At our last meeting Heather Chalkley showed us how to make fabric bowls.  I've only ever made these using hand stitching before and that was very time consuming.  Heather showed us how to make them using a sewing machine and we made rapid progress.

Fabric ripped into strips and ironed - it's good to have more than one fabric

You need fabric + matching thread, polypropylene rope, a sewing machine, some pins and a small bulldog clip.

Polypropylene rope

Then away you go ...

Sewing in progress!

You can see how much rope is needed for one bowl!

By the end of the day there were some lovely bowls ready for use!

After our lovely bowling day I went home enthusiastic to make more.  I decided I would use neutral fabric and stitch with neutral cotton thread and dye them.  So that's what I did.  After dyeing them all over, I then inverted the bowls in a shallow dye bath to get a contrasting colour on the rim.

An undyed bowl

Finished bowls

Here's what I learnt ...

It's quicker to use patterned fabric to get a colourful result and you don't need that much!

If you put a wet inverted bowl in the dye bath you get a rim that is just the area covered by the dye bath.

If you put the inverted bowl in dry the dye rises much further up the bowl but you get a nice shading effect ..

If you don't like the colour you have some scope to change it

 

Blue with green

Becomes blue with black!

 
and it can be quite addictive ...

Lots of bowls

The printed fabric bowls have gone to new homes and after some more dyeing this is what I've ended up with in the dyed bowls line ... 

In the end I made 8 bowls and used about 50m of rope.  Hold on to your washing lines - they may not be safe with me about!

A Workshop with Angie Hughes

The textile group I belong to (Nest of Makers) organised a weekend workshop with Angie Hughes, textile artist & tutor, and I was lucky enough to go along.  Here are some of Angie's samples ...

Here are some of the materials we used ...

We all started off on day 1 with white cotton velvet on firm iron on vilene.  And with the use of dye-na-flow inks, black ink, thick bleach, acrylics, stencils, printing blocks, sheers, foils and machine embroidery we made our journey to the end of day 2.

And here are our results at the end of day 1 and day 2 ...

Alice ...

Bryony ...

Fiona ...

Gill ...

Heather ...

Janine ...

Jo ...

Nadine ...

Me ...

Stefanie ...

Although not yet finished, each one turned out wonderful and different - a great weekend. Thanks, Angie and thanks to Heather & Nadine for organising it!

"Dress to Impress" - A Round Up of the Community Banners on York City Walls

Clifford's Tower (detail from Nest of Makers banner)

I think you'll all agree that the 5m long community banners which appeared on York's City Walls as part of the "Dress to Impress" project were impressive.  You may still have time to see them.  But if not here are the ones I've seen.

By Lendal Bridge Archway ...

York Community Artists

SMTIM - Children in Care Council

River Foss Society

York Environment Forum

York Greenpeace

Canon Lee School

From the West Offices Archway to Toft Tower opposite the Railway Station ...

Planet South Bank

Howehill

Holgate Windmill

31st St Hilda's Brownies

Edible York

Breast Cancer Campaign

Refugee Action York

Fulford Barracks Youth Club

St Nicks Fields

Accessible Arts & Media

1st Heslington Brownies

Quilt Museum & Gallery

Community Sparks

York Time Bank

Beehive Pre-school

Fulford Brownies

Albion Avenue Club

York Retreat

Growing Together

Haxby Road Children's Centre

Nest of Makers (the group I belong to!)

St Leonard's Hospice

York Carnival/York Curioser

From Toft Tower to Micklegate ...

Occasional Painters

St Oswald's Creative Writing Club

Clifton Parish Church

Samaritans

Artbus 2

Playtime Speech Unit

Copmanthorpe Youth Club

York Pride

Community at Carr

Home Educators

York Carers' Forum with Crombie Wilkinson Solicitors

1st Heslington Rainbows

Choose 2

Victoria Bar - outside & in ...

Blankettes

Good Humour Ladies Club

International Service

Acomb Recovery Unit

Bishopgate ...

Fulford Tots

Kyra Women's Project

Artbus

I Can Sing & FIS

City of York Council

Poppleton Under 5s

1st Stockton on the Forest Brownies

Haxby Road After School Club

Quilters' Guild

BKs

The "Dress to Impress" project has been run by Emily Harvey for City of York Council and has been part of the welcome for the Grand Départ in York.  The banners have been created by residents & community groups as part of a partnership project between City of York Council and the Quilt Museum and is part of the York: Be part of it programme.  

As well as all the hard work done by the Community Groups who decorated their banners, a big thank you must go to volunteers at the Quilt Museum who made the banners so they could be decorated and to all those who helped to hang them on the City Walls.

Currently Emily is looking for a venue to exhibit them all together after which they will be returned to the groups that made them.