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Fabric Bowls
As I mentioned on Facebook, I have to get Christmas gifts made. So I have set the Stars ‘n’ Flowers quilt aside, for evening handwork and am working on Christmas gifts during the day.I saw these bowls being made by Arts and Crafts 4 You on YouTube. These would be perfect! Also would give me the opportunity to use up some of those buttons I have been saving.
I think the buttons that I plan to use on this bowl, have been saved long enough. They are probably from the post World War II era, considering it says, “Made in Germany-U.S. Zone” on the card. Probably came from my mother-in-law’s button box, since it has a note on there in her handwriting. When was the last time you bought five attractive buttons for a quarter?
At least it made me organize my button collection, by color. I used separate sandwich bags for each. I should have had my grand-daughter do this last summer when she was visiting. As a child, I loved to play with my grandmother’s button box, so I am sure she would have liked that activity as well.
Have more white ones than any others. Have read about dyeing buttons with Rit dye, have any of you tried that?
Instead of fusible batting, didn’t have any, I fused fusible interfacing, to the Dream Cotton batting. Need to use what I have on hand–make do or do without.
I did find that some kind of stiffener is needed, the one bowl I made without the interfacing, was too soft. So the fusible batting that she used in the video or the interfacing gives it some body.
Made mine slightly larger, than her small bowl, by cutting everything at once, roughly 10-1/2″, but then drew a 10″ line on the interfacing and sewed on that. I liked her idea of sewing into the line at the opening but found that it needed to be reinforced with backstitching, or all the stitches come out as the bowl is turned inside out. After stitching on the line and trimming the corners, I trimmed 1/4″ from the stitching.
Trim the corners, cut each one at an angle, to reduce any bulk, do not clip the stitching.
Instead of stitching the sides together to form the corner by hand I used the widest setting of zigzag on the machine, set to “0” length. This is hidden under the fold and goes quicker than hand stitching. I marked them at 3″, which makes a wider and shallower bowl.
Here are the boxes ready for their buttons. I got so carried away with choosing fabrics, that I cut out enough for THIRTY-TWO boxes. Realized I really didn’t have time to finish all of them, so just sewed the pleats on sixteen.
Now I have to do my least favorite thing, sew on the buttons. Was thinking about hot gluing them…but I still have to tack the little flap in place. No way around it, sew on the buttons! Here they are. They were very well received.
Have to find more buttons to finish the rest, didn’t have as many as I thought. Have a lot of single buttons, but not too many sets of four.
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Tags: batting, buttons, fabric bowls, tutorial
