Milky Way Rope Bowl

This rope bowl turned out exceptional.

A giant THANK YOU to Pencil Girl for dyeing the rope and all the other things you've done for me. The Milky Way Bowl is winging it's way to her on Monday. It will look awesome on her dining table filled with seasonal fruits.

I just love how these bowls are reversible. I did some orange stitching - getting rid of orange bobbins - on the outside and it looks like the Milky Way.

I tried to get an oblong track out of it but was only slightly successful. Another skill to work on.

This bowl has beefy handles and a beefy knot to match.

Pencil Girl has spent many years as a 4-H leader. Her second kidlet ran off to college last year!  She is scaling back.
This post from 2010 regarding tie-dyeing is still relevant.


I still have a few yards left of this dyed rope - thinking of adding it to another bowl as the top part.

***added next day::: The second bowl.

***just a few more days...SALE continues in my friend's Etsy Shop;
CraftyTokyoMama on etsy. Use Coupon code AUGUST20 throughout the month of August to get 20% off your purchase.

Don't forget about Etsy Love - even if you don't buy anything - just hover over the heart on each listing and tap on it. (thanks!)

Fabric Wrapped Rope Bowl

Complete with threads hanging off.

Benta and Janine challenged me to tackle fabric wrapped clothesline bowls.
I dreamed about it.

A red, white & blue bowl....

Actually, they didn't challenge me. They just thought about it. lol

This is how I start my bowls. I wrap it tight into a spiral and push straight pins in to secure.
This particular rope is a cheap one -- $5 for 100 feet, which will make a good sized bowl. It's cotton braided around a styrofoam core. I didn't have any problems sewing on it but I did use a size 14 needle. Anyhoo, my pins won't pierce the styrofoam so I insert them just enough to grab the cotton bits. The pins help to keep the spiral flat while starting the sewing.

I also put a spot of Fraycheck on the end so it doesn't 'fluff' up. You could use any glue.

I make my spiral about 2 inches in diameter and then zigzag around in tight circles and even going back over the initial circles twice and then start going round and round. It's important to have the tail come off on the right hand side so you can zigzag in a continuous spiral.

 I really didn't want to mess with strips of fabric, getting tangled trying to wrap the cording.
And I was right. It is a bother.

So, in my dreams the other night, my bowl was designed with three rounds each of red, white & blue. With the rest of the bowl being the natural cotton clothesline.

I robbed my scrap basket - no real fabric was harmed in the making of this bowl. However, blue became turquoise, because there is no other color of blue in my scrap basket.

And just plain white up to my fabric strip colors felt wrong, so I switched threads and bobbin and put some red into the bottom of this bowl when the base was still flat.

 I really like my knot finish on this bowl too.   Three stripes, three knots?

 Overall, I like this bowl.    I'm not in love with it though.

It feels unwieldy big. And the contrast between the natural white and the fabric colors is more intense. Just using thread feels more modern and trendy.

I do like how the handles were even set off the top.


I can't say that I'm done with these bowls. They are amazingly fast and give such awesome results. They feed my need to make a craft in my small amount of free time. This fabric wrapped bowl took just over two hours. Just using thread is half the time. Big bang for my creativity.


I still need to trim thread tails and this bowl will go on the completed pile.

 My friend in Japan sent me an awesome t-shirt: SEW Elaborately Days - complete with vintage sewing machine.

Last, but not least, Fabric sale tomorrow in the church parking lot (??!!).
I'm gonna take my bike (3 miles into town) so I can behave myself.
With my tiny biking backpack.

hahaahahahahahahahahaha.

Second Rope Bowl

 And the handle theory worked.

I was gonna throw the remaining rope out to the garage to tie up some raspberries - or something. Noticing that maybe I only used 80 feet for the big bowl, why waste the remainder of this cotton rope in the garden?

Re-threading, I tried out some metallic thread. Another tutorial had problems with it and I did at the edge of the bottom when it suddenly broke. Good time to re-thread, so I tried a variegated purple and I love how this smaller bowl turned out.

My african violet likes the bigger bowl?

 See how much smaller this bowl is?

This is how I sewed it, but I actually liked it better flipped inside out. The red at the bottom is more vibrant. This was a regular red thread in my bobbin. The metallic adds a subtle degree of sparkle but it was banished to the bottom as being too subtle.

I managed to get the handles equidistant but one was bigger than the other.

There are no mistakes with this bowl making. I threw it back under the presser foot and sewed the handle to the body for perhaps 3/8" and Ta-Da!

Beautiful.
Kathy's notes::::  This smaller bowl sewn with 4.8 width on the metallic, with 4.5 on thread change-over.    Length was 3.0 - 3.5



****Sandra was also thinking about sewing a rope bowl and had some good questions:::

Her inquiry;    "I've seen different versions of those bowls on Pinterest and I've been dying to try making one, if I can find the supplies for a reasonable price (which isn't always an easy job here in $$Canadaland$$!).  Yours is gorgeous - did you just know automatically (by feel, maybe) when to start shaping and how much to angle the rows, or did it take a while for your brain to work it out?  How hard was it on your hands and shoulders?  I get terribly hunched shoulders when I freemo quilt (although I haven't done it now in years) but my main problem now is my hands - they tend to get cranky. "

My long-winded answer:::
It took a solid hour - maybe 1 1/4 hours to make the first one. The smaller one took 15 minutes.

 I had been thinking about it for months. I knew I did NOT want to try the fabric wrapped version. Other than securing the bottom and angling the bowl 'plate' UP at 6". it was very organic. Look again at my Pinterest board. I added some ideas. Odd # stripes is from landscaping and window dressing advice: group in 3's and/or 5's.

You can only sew until your bobbin runs out. I used five on the the large bowl, most of two on the small bowl.

The body hurt is all at the beginning where you are hunched over trying to get the zigzag to catch both coils. When you angle the bowl up and start the shaping, then you can consciously sit tall in your sewing chair, relax, and find your sewing rhythm. My clear foot has two red dots on it on either side of the center 'opening' (toes). I working on letting the dots guide me.

Easier to get tense at beginning because of the curve sewing.

Because of the bobbin changes, it's easy to take breaks. The design was very organic.

I would say the body hurt of FMQ is way worse. All of these people who have awesome quilts send their quilts OUT to be FMQ'ed. They don't do all the work themselves.

Good questions!


**** lucky me: I have four places in my small town to buy cotton clothesline. 2nd and 3rd places were cheaper. I am trying some 3/16" wide stuff now. The first rope was 7/32" diameter - so a little bigger. I'll hit up the 4th place in the next day or so.

Getting A Handle On Things

Tote bag finished.
I didn't want to sew a handle for this tote bag.

I could have.
--- in the time it took me to traipse up to Joann's (hopefully) and buy this set.

However, the end of the purchased handle was a round piece as was my re-purposed lobster claw piece.
How to join them???
Nothing in the purse section of Joann's, although they are carrying a line of purse feet and other hardware that is very interesting.

I wandered over to the jewelry findings section and eventually found a large key ring. Too big and they didn't have four of the mediums which, proportionately, was the correct size. No other options (except sewing a connector piece), so I zoomed home where I did find four matching key rings and, tada!, this bag is done.





And here are my practice grandkids with their valentine owl purses.
I had to tease my niece about the pinkness.
She was so adamantly opposed to pink when the oldest was born.

They showed her!




Hello Kitty. {giggle & snort}

Lol - Kristin!