Bleak MidWinter?

In the bleak midwinter by Rosetti is one of my favorite holiday carols. If you click on this photo, you can go read about the remarkable woman who wrote it. :) It does not look quite like this outside my house now - much of the snow has melted away, though not all. We had freezing rain all day today ... and likely more tomorrow ... so 'nasty' is my personal definition of the weather right now. :P

This has been one of the weekends that contain two days of quilt-oriented Zooms for me. Saturday afternoon my Quilting With Friends modern group got together again, post-holiday, to stitch and chat. So nice to see people! I decided to do more hand work ... using a, hmm, non-traditional material to make myself a small bowl. 

I've been channeling my own personal do-not-be-so-perfectionist mantra, so this bowl is kind of wonky and imperfect ... and I really like it. :) Here is the evolution:

First I covered the inside of the cup-shape with fabric. You probably can't tell but I did make two darts in the flat piece of fabric to fit it into the already-created cup. I hand stitched a spiral to hold down the fabric.

For whatever reason I did not feel like making more darts when I started on the outside fabric covering so I cut scraps freehand into bias strips and hand sewed them in concentric tiers with an irregular curving cap. There won't be any fabric threads hanging off due to the bias edges.

I used an extra strip of foundation material to create a stand for the cup shape so my bowl would not roll around.

Here is the finished bowl (sitting on my current journal for size comparison), holding some paper words I cut out of old book pages recently. I'm pleased with this little thing and I have three more pre-made cup shapes to create other bowls with. I'm pondering how to make those. :)

Today, Sunday afternoon, was the scheduled monthly meeting of the Baltimore Modern quilt guild. We had a speaker (via Zoom) - Carole Lyle-Shaw - on sustainable quilt habits. Great inspiration!! She had some very on-point comments about avoiding excess and managing our stashes (of fabric, tools, patterns, etc) that my personal experience supports. :)

Carole was a good customer of mine when Seminole Sampler was extant (and she gave me a very nice packed box filled with African print scraps when she was de-stashing). I have enjoyed watching her teaching practice grow (from the aquaintence-level distance). 

We also did some break out rooms during our meeting to talk over challenges and problems we have dealt with while creating/designing 'modern' quilts. Interesting to hear what other people struggle with!

I don't plan to go out anywhere tomorrow ... so I'm hoping to do a little organizing and sewing in my room. Fingers crossed!

:) Linda