Wrapped Rope Bowls

Under the “What in the ham sandwich was I thinking?” category comes about 6 yards of “Red Hat” fabric. The following project lends itself well to this fabric, because other then the color combos, you can’t really tell it’s “Red Hat” fabric.

I’m so excited! I just got new feet for my Bernina 830 sewing machine from California Sewing in San Jose. (Of course I also got a 9mm throat plate, but I’ll discuss that in another post) I got the #35C invisible zipper foot and the #59C.  Do you see the crystals on the side of each foot?  On 9 mm Bernina Sewing machines, these help the machine determine that the needle bar on the sewing machine can swing a full 9 mm.

Invisible Zipper Foot

Notice also there are grooves on both sides of the feet.  When making piping, or in my case a corded bowl, the piping will fit perfectly in the grooves and hold it for the perfect stitch to construct the bowl. This is what I thought would happen, but wasn’t the case. With a wide zig -zag stitch, the stitches skipped most times. At one point, the machine wouldn’t zig zag at all. This is what I did to trouble-shoot this problem. I had a Klasse size 90 denim needle in, I changed it to a new size 90 Schmetz denim needle.  Sometimes, reseating the  needle and assuring it is indeed in the needle place far enough will stop skipped stitches.  The machine continued to skip stitches.  I used the open toe #20 foot so I could visualize the skipping . I attempted the zig-zag stitching on a plain fabric, and there wasn’t a problem.   Finally I changed the thread and went with the default stitch width and it worked flawlessly.  I think another part of the problem is that I wasn’t using the poly/cotton clothesline recommended in the book “It’s a Wrap,” but I will get that cord next time. Here is a video with Nina McVeigh using this foot for a similar technique; Corded Purses

The double cord foot for 4-6mm cord

Great tips and examples

This one is on my wish list!

These bowls can be made on any zig-zag sewing machine.  The first time I saw these rope bowls being created was at Pfaff training in Cleveland, Ohio.  If memory serves me,  there was a lady from  the Sulky company demonstrating the technique for a book. When I got back from training, I purchased some clothesline and used the Pfaff 2130 with the IDT and people were amazed as they watched this process in my store.  This was about 3 years ago now and I use the bowl to keep thread in.

First bowl I made. Messy, but functional

This is the beginning of the bowl I created this week.  I starting making a round disc:

Here I'm making the disc. I'm using the #20 wide foot so I can see the skipping of stitches if they occur

According to “It’s a Wrap,” the bowl gets its shape holding it at different angles to from the machine bed during construction.  The green tape marks the beginning of the angle.

 

The angle 2 postion. Started at the green tape Notice the #59 foot is on. The zig-zag stitch is at it’s default setting; no skipped stitches.

Finally, for the straight sides, the bowl is 90 degree angle from the machine bed

The completed bowl

Another shot of the completed bowl

These are so much fun to make. I’ve ordered more clothesline and will be making more of these.