Have you ever tried ‘pottery’ using cotton cord or rope? If the answer is no, read on! Actually read on any way because I don’t want anyone to miss out. I love a project that allows me to use scraps and make some useful storage and rope bowls fit both categories perfectly.

If you are new to this, cotton pottery is where you shape a length of cotton rope into a bowl or dish with your sewing machine, zig-zagging as you go. Sometimes, they are simply referred to as rope bowls.

You can make these bowls ‘naked’ – just the cord and some nice thread or you can cover the cord with fabric as you see in the photo above (bias tape off-cuts work really well) and then make the bowl the same way.

I am actually choosing the naked method today for two reasons, one, you can really see what is going on and two it is the easiest to do.

There are books on this subject and some of the makes are really imaginative. I have seen vases and Moroccan- inspired jars with lids. Really there is no limit to what you can do with fabric!

But I want to keep it simple today, just in case this is your first go. We are going to make an uncovered bowl so that you can get your eye in and see what to do.

So what do we need to make a cotton pottery bowl?

• 1/4″ cotton cord. You will need about 6 yds. for this project. I have used hemp rope before but avoid climbing rope, nylon cord or anything too rigid. If you are doing a ‘naked’ bowl, I prefer to use cotton cord because you see it and it looks better than some options.
• a small piece of cotton tape ( about 1 1/2″ wide x 1 1/4″ long) to match the cord in colour as closely as possible. The thinner the better too.
• A small piece of leather or vegan leather to hide the finish point. This would be 1 1/4″ wide x 2 1/4″ long.
• Strong thread like perle cotton to finish the leather tab
• Glue that is suitable for fabric. I am using white PVA.
• Leather hole punch

I have made a few of these bowls fully wrapped with fabric and some with wraps here and there as you see in the photos.

You can do anything at all. To be honest, my least favourite is a fully wrapped one. The machine doesn’t like it either and tends to skip stitches. Plain and simple wins the day today!

So let’s get started!

Grab the piece of cotton tape and your glue and glue the tape to one end of the cord. This stops fraying and gives something for the first stitches to bite into. Clip it and allow it to dry.

The point of a naked bowl is that the thread has a chance to shine so pick a lovely colour that brings you joy. I love earth colours and I have chosen two of my favourites. I will stitch about halfway up with one colour and then swap to finish as I did on the other bowl that you see in the photo below.

Set your machine to zig-zag and fill a couple of bobbins to match your threads. The stitch length and width depends but it needs to be wide enough to catch both pieces of rope and not too far apart (or close together). On my Janome, I have opted for 5.0 wide and 2.0 long.

It is actually hardest to get started and a breeze once you get going. To set up, the wrapped end has to be on the left and the cord on the right. Put the bulk of the cord into your lap at least to get started and make sure that it can run freely.

Fold the end of your cord back on itself as described above to match the length of the wrap (in this case, 1 1/2″) and stitch

Keep stitching, coiling the rope as you go. Constantly check that the zig-zag is catching the rope on both sides. You will have to stop and start a bit, re- adjust direction and then start sewing again for the first three coils. I use my Clover Hold- It Precision Stiletto to hold the cord close to the previous coil and keep my fingers out of the way

Keep stitching and carefully coiling. The base of the bowl needs to be flat at this point and emerging from your machine on the left so that it can be angled up to build the sides in the next step

When the base is as big as you want it, in our case about 5″ diameter, angle the bowl up to the left to build the sides

Continue until you have about 2 yards of cord left. Either thread swap colours if you like that idea or simply finish your bowl. I have chosen to change colours

Here is what you have so far. I don’t like the look of the end bit. I have seen all sorts of creative ways to end the coil including flowers and decorative motifs but my favourite way is to put a leather tab over it.

Trim the frayed part of the end and glue the leather tab over the end and allow it to dry.

Punch some holes with the hole punch. Four is about right on such a wide piece of leather

Then stitch through the holes with your strong thread.

If you have made a smaller bowl like some that you see in my pictures, you can use a smaller leather tab (about 3/4″ wide x 2″ long) and use a single rivet for something different. This is a great use for orphan rivets and Chicago Screws as you see in the photo below.

You will notice that our bowl today is not completely round. That is because of that long (1 1/2″) starting wrap. You can make this shorter or coil it tighter into a proper spiral to begin with but it is easier to start with a longer one on your first go. It is also nice to have a variety of shapes.

That’s it! I hope that you have enjoyed making this cute project. I would love to hear what you thought so do leave a comment and let me know what you made. You can share your work on Instagram too by using the hashtag #thefolkartfactory.

And before you go, do have a look in my pattern shop.

And if you see something that you love, take advantage of my social media discount for and instant 20% off your pattern. It is super easy- simply scroll down to the bottom of the information about the pattern and share on Facebook using the button. The pattern price will reduce automatically. This is an exclusive reader offer, only open to readers of my blog.

See you next time with more sewing goodness!

Hugs

Debbie xx