Make a few denim fabric bowls for your next picnic. They are stackable, sturdy, washable, thrifty, and easy to construct. Use scrap denim, contrasting fabric scraps, and something for batting.
For each bowl, you need to cut 1 base of denim, 1 base shape of padding, and 1 base shape of contrast fabric. For the "petals" of the bowl, you'll need 6 of denim, 6 padding, and 6 of contrast fabric. Since denim and the padding are quite bulky, nothing more is needed to help the bowl "keep its shape".
Either use a zig-zag stitch or a satin stitch around each edge of each piece. Make sure you "sandwich" each bowl piece with the denim on top, batting in center, and contrast fabric on the bottom.
To join the bowl pieces, simply use a satin stitch to join each piece. When joining the "petals" of the bowl to the base, begin at the points connecting the piece to the base and sew out toward the ends.
You can sew the satin stitch on each side of the bowl to reinforce the joining seams if you wish. They go together pretty quickly.
Depending on how quickly one is sewing; the bowl can be constructed in an hour or less. The bowls I made, measure approximately 12x12 inches across. Construct a pattern scale to suit you.
I find it helps to trim the bowl pieces as the sandwiched pieced are sewn together. I also like to machine quilt a pattern on each bowl piece as I sew the sandwich together.
By Monica from Cortez, CO
Interesting. I'm always looking for ways to recycle denim, since it lasts forever and is so sturdy. It would be easy to change the shape of the bowls too. I think that I'm going to try this with my serger. Thanks.
I enjoyed reading about these fabric bowls! I am going to do this too!
