It’s holiday time! Time to decorate, time for making gifts, the annual Christmas missive (yeah, I actually write one of those…), and all festive thoughts aside, today is Day Without Art, an international program to mark AIDS Awareness Day. I logged on this morning, and my Google home page has all the blogs I follow, plus things like the MET artwork of the day, something from the vast archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today I logged on and there was nothing but a black rectangle. There was a note attached, “Today’s daily artwork will not appear. Day Without Art began on December 1, 1989, as part of a day of action and mourning in response to the AIDS crisis”. It hasn’t escaped me that this is a perfect day to reflect that we still have a lot of work to do in the arts community for AIDS awareness, as we gear up for the spending/decorating/eating frenzy that marks the last month of the year.
On a brighter note, my daughter got with the holiday spirit immediately, she disappeared into the bathroom and came out decorated for the season!
And I started to play around with something I could make for small gifts for a few friends, I resurrected a technique I’ve written about in my Leftover’s Monograph, and climbed into my attic stash in the sky, and pulled out some circa 1986 scraps, and had a blast. The idea here is to take 1″ scraps (on grain, no need for bias), and twist them around piping cord, like a barber pole, and coil up the cord, stitching it together, round and round, with a triple step zig-zag.
I’ll let the photos do the explaining, now that I found out how to put in a caption!
![cutfabric Cut one inch strips of fabric on grain.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/cutfabric-225x300.jpg)
![unravel If the fabric is ravel-y, unravel a couple of threads on the edges, the effect will be something like chenille when the bowl is stitched.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/unravel-225x300.jpg)
![bowl1 Start by wrapping the one inch strip around the tapered end of the piping, securing with a pin. Wrap for about 6".](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bowl1-300x225.jpg)
![bowl2 Fold the tapered end back on itself and secure with a triple step zig zag in the machine.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bowl2-300x225.jpg)
![bowl3 Continue spiraling the wrapped piping in a coil under the presser foot of the machine, zig-zagging around to hold the piping together.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bowl3-300x225.jpg)
![bowl4 As the bowl grows, start to shape the sides. Keep adding one inch strips by overlapping.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/bowl4-300x225.jpg)
![Bowl When the bowl is the correct size, cut the piping and taper the end, wrap with the fabric strip and taper to nothing around the top of the bowl.](https://weaversew.com/wordblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Bowl-300x225.jpg)