Getting Earthy

It is no secret that I love working in jewel tones.  They are my absolute favorite.  Recently, my friend Katrina gave me an order for an earth-toned coiled bowl and I soon realized I had nothing to show her!  Last week before the construction project started in the sewing room, I sorted through my stash and came up with some nice earth-toned fabrics that I thought would make nice bowls.  The first fabric was a chocolate brown that had large flowers on it (dark red and orange) with sage green leaves.  I also found a dark red in my stash and a sage green fabric take matched the anchor print so wha-la. I made them part of the design.  It always amazes me how different the fabric looks once it gets wrapped and sewn.  This particular fabric did not let me down on that count. 

I also found in my stash this VERY busy fabric that I have never know what to do with so it was time to do some experimentation on the second lighter hued bowl.  This fabric had all different textures and colors of narrow stripes on the diagonal.   I  realize I needed to throw in a couple of plainer fabrics so that the eye would have SOME PLACE to land and the same sage green from the dark brown bowl matched this fabric also and since I wanted this to be lighter in tone, I threw in an off white textured fabric for the top stripe.  I started out the bowl using the striped fabric on the bottom and up the sides to the first stripe.  I cut the fabric in 5/8" strips from salvage to salvage and got a very interesting texture.  I then experimented on the next round of using this print and cut the stripes much wider and got a similar but different texture.  On the last round above the off white stripe, I cut the fabric on the diagonal and got a stunning result.  Since all these narrow stripes are different but match in tone and color it looks like I had grabbed all these different fabric from a scrape bag.  I am not sure if this experiment worked out or not but it made for a VERY interesting looking bowl with LOTS of movement and textures.  I can't wait to show it to Katrina!  As soon as I get moved back into my sewing room I plan on making 2 more earth-toned bowls.  Getting earthy made me realize I had been ignoring a whole would of more subtle tones so I am glad I got this commission since it gave me the opportunity to experience working with a different palate, a real eye-opening experience!