Sometimes a project has several factors that brings it to life. In this instance I needed something to sit on my thread cabinet to corral pins and scissors and such. Everything I tried just slid off and I was quite concerned I would scratch its beautiful surface without a mat or something. Secondly, the scrap strips were exploding out the drawers again.
That's when I got inspired to make a large coiled rope bowl for holding all those necessary items. It has been several years since I played with the rope bowls, so I went to Pinterest to gain ideas. Plenty of tutorials and such there, so I won't even think about doing one.
Then I sent Sir Old Man to the hardware store for me. I need clothesline rope. He has learned it is better to just do as I request. I am sure he thought I was forgetting that I have a new dryer that works great.
I pulled out the strip drawer and decided to cut the 2'' strips to 1''. More twisting required but it looks neater with a narrower strip. I can see I need to give the top edges a hair cut now!
Anyway, I covered lots of rope, probably 30 feet, and used lots of clips to hold things in place. Then I filled a bobbin to match to taupe Isacord thread I planned to use. It took me a couple of sessions to get everything zig-zagged together.
Bowl is about 10'' across and about 4'' high. With the mechanic dish of pins to weight it down, it does not slide around. Success!
This is a fun project, and could just inspire me to make a few more.
Happy stitching.
8 comments:
You really sew these bowls on a sewing machine? I will have to check these out online. Yours is lovely.
I love this type of bowl, but, I've not made one before. Most of my machines are straight stitch. I seldom pull out a zig zag machine.
I love the fabrics you chose.
I've made those bowls before. I even gave some to the gals at the office for Christmas gifts. One of the nice things about them is if you have some really ugly fabric that you don't like...make it into a rope bowl & it won't even look the same (except for the color). I have one sitting by sewing machine with misc. "stuff" in it.
I have looked at making these bowls several times but it seems rather work intensive.
I’ve wanted to try this for years, but never have. I even purchased a book. Several years back, I had a lot of hand pain, and I didn’t think I would be able to finish one. Now, I doubt that’s the case. Maybe I’ll be inspired to try one. I think my LQS offers a class.
Very clever solution to your need. Your shading through those soothing colors is beautiful!
I've often seen and admired these coiled bowls but never made one, they're so colourful, I'm going to hunt out tutorials.
Post a Comment