From concept to execution - the making of the Nested Blooms design.

Turns out this pattern was 6 months in the making, I had no idea until I dug out my design notes for this blog post. But now that I think about it, it really was a while back...

You know how it goes, one minute you are checking out some pre-order Tula, the next minute you know exactly what you want to make with it. When I saw the "what a ditz" range I instantly thought of my Nan, which led me to thinking about her cut glass bowls, which turned into the Nested Blooms pattern. When a design is ment to be, it really is that easy.

Generally when I commit to turning an idea into a project I have spent a lot of time slowly turning the shape in my head. There is a lot of mental "folding" where I work out the net shape of the project and work out how many pieces, approx. angle of pieces and the best way to sew it together. Once I have a resolved plan together it can go from idea > prototype > published pattern in a 2 week period. Truthfully I get bored really easily, so once I have "solved" the problem I have to make it super quick or I just move along to the next project. This is why there generally is only one studio sample, once I have nailed it, I move to the next challenge.

With this bowl it was one quick sketch, a paper prototype to make sure there is nothing wrong with the concept. In this case I decided to angle the gussets a little more to pull the top rim in a little tighter, there was nothing "wrong" with how the paper version sat, I just knew it could be better.

Slightly worse for wear paper prototype of the small nested blooms design.

Despite having 98% success on the first bowl it wasn't perfect. It came down to 1mm in the end, 1 tiny millimeter. In a nutshell the internal gusset seams pulled a little too tightly, the combined 2mm increase was exactly what this design needed. Bbbuutttt instead of being sensible and making another small bowl, I descided this would be a three size bowl set and then made the next size up... yes I got bored.

You can see in this photo how the internal gussets of the smallest bowl look a little mangled and worse for wear. The medium and large bowls have much smoother and closed gusset joins.

I was also a little traumatised. Sewing that tiny bowl nearly broke me, and un-dramatically drew more blood that was reasonable. I needed a little mental holiday from the design as well.

The medium bowl went together without a hitch, and it was a lot easier to sew. You would really be astounded at how strong a structure made of cardstock and fabric can be, I managed to fit 7 or 8 lemons inside it without the shape being irreparably distorted. Why lemons? Well I had them in the fruit bowl, and my mum thought this design would make a good fruit bowl... sometimes you have to give the people what they want.

Medium nested blooms bowl, yes it hold a fair amount of lemons.

Aside from failing to alert Tula Pink to my brilliance (I jest, my ego isnt that big), and running out of what a ditzy colour options, I decided to roll out my large size in some Sally Kelly I had been hoarding. Again she went together beautifully, and unlike Tula, Sally deigned to comment on my post * squeals in delight *.

Trio of Nested Blooms Bowls

At this point the dopamine ran out. The though of writing this pattern was mentally damaging, I knew she was going to be a biggin and I just could not force myself to do it. In the end I chuffed the kids off to their grandparents for the day and I sat and wrote. Hubby manned the kettle and agreed to bring me snacks on the hour if I buckled down and got the first draft out. I did do well he got me steak for dinner, winning. I must have thought about it (procrastinated) long enough to nail it, my technical editor had "hardly any corrections". I, ever sanguine, though that may mean less than 20 edits... boy was I wrong. Though they were mostly grammatical so I am calling that a win.

So here we are, 6 months and four bowl later... well nearly four bowls. Remember how I never made sure the smallest bowl worked like magic?? You guessed it, I am now making one last bowl to make sure I have nailed not only the pattern templates, but the assembly technique. So if future you has purchased the pattern and you are looking for any sage advice on assembly, I've got your back! Small bowl specifically - You don't need to sew all the way to the bottom of the gussets for the outer bowl. I know this sounds insane and I will pop some photos in below, but you can get away with sewing from top to a whole inch from the bottom. That being said try to get all the way down, or at least 1/2" from the bottom. The assembly instructions suggest sewing in sets of two, then joining those sets together before sewing the two hemisphere sides closed (best practice, trust me... I've made four). When you are sewing the first sets of two its pretty "easy" to sew them all the way down to the base. It does get progressively harder the closer your outer bowl comes to completion, so your last two seams (sewing two sets of four panels closed) are the trickiest. I have found the best way to start is to close the gusset up on itself, make sure all the edges line up, and secure it with a quilters binding clip (Sohmo make great ones). Then working rim to base, sew down as far as you can manage without destroying your templates. By destroying I mean bending, denting, or overly handling them, you do need them as part of the support structure.

You can see the stitch line height differences between sewing the sets of two together vs the final seam.

You can see a little more light where the seam has not been stitched closed, but not too much and the structure still holds up.

Honestly thats really all the additional help you'll most likely need. As I said earlier, I had a feeling this was going to be a big pattern... shes 21 pages in total. Granted theres a lot of templates in that (over 15 pages I think), but I also did try to explain to the best of my ability how to sucessfully construct one of these bowl, specifically the adorable -- and fiddly small size.

If you should run into any issues feel free to drop a comment below, or email me over at hello@cakeandale.com.au or drop me a DM on insta @cake.and.ale

The largest nested blooms bowl makes a great yarn craft companion.

I hope you have enjoyed this look behind the scenes! Cass xx