Month: September 2024

Hello, Hello to All!

I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. I did, with a family visit and a new project. LOL, like I need a new project…

AND, thankfully, there was some rain yesterday. Some, but enough so that I don’t have to water today.

I’ve been making rope bowls from braided 1/4th-inch cotton clothesline rope–thanks to a presentation to Patchwork Gals by Rick Sanchez. Rick also posted a video to his you tube channel (Stitch With Rick), which really got me started as I could see him actually making a bowl. Rick’s bowls are awesome. Mine are getting there. I’ve made three of them now and have plans for the 4th for later today–a big wide bowl made with just the plain rope and the leather tag.

My first bowl is in the foreground with the little loop closing at the top. It is made with a narrower rope that is not braided, but twisted. And this rope has an inner core that is poly–which makes this rope kind of stretchy. I’ve watched a lot of online videos now and joined two Facebook rope groups–and that’s where the thicker, braided rope knowledge came from–and the leather tabs on the next two bowls. ( I have leather here and a hole punch tool from making bags with leather straps.) Braided rope does not have an inner core–it is just all cotton.

One of the things I have been trying is wrapping the rope with fabric strips from my stash–and that effort is a learning curve. I quickly learned the strips need to be narrower and cut on the bias to wrap well.

You can see in the bird’s eye view that the bowls with the thicker braided rope are much sturdier. BUT, I don’t like the fabric I chose for the 3rd bowl with the green and yellow fabric.

Still, this bowl is pretty. And useful.

The people online who wrap the rope with fabric do a MUCH better job than I have so far–so I’ll go back and look at those videos much closer. I do like the look of including some fabric-wrapped portions on a bowl, which, actually, I did better in the first bowl.

Rick also uses yarn, mostly variegated, that is fed into the space where two rope strands come together–and those bowls are very pretty. So I will try to do that soon as well. I got some cotton yarn yesterday.

I found longer lengths of the braided rope online at Amazon, and I’ll try it today for the wider bowl I want to make–that “hank” is several hundred feet. I can only find 50-foot braided cotton rope here (Lowes), but I can get a bigger piece by ordering it at 100 feet from Lowes, so I did that as well. True Value has this 100-foot braided rope, but it is $$$$. As near as I can tell, about the only way to join two 50-feet lengths of rope is to use fabric to cover the join. So I’ve been limited to making smaller bowls, which is fine for now.

I made myself STOP yesterday afternoon and return to sewing the scrappy leader/ender quilt on the design wall together–which I finished about 8:30 pm last night. It’s ready to be measured and prepped for the longarm.

I’ve been playing with the Hurty Ruler and big (4 by 8-inch) half-square triangles made with scraps from my stash. They are so fun!

AND, I’m playing with another scrappy leader/ender quilt using the 3 1/2-inch Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society squares that live in two bins–one color, one neutral. I using a cross block with the cross in the darker colors.

AND, there is a finished post card, but I’ll post about that next time.