A few months ago I sewed myself a giant rope basket. Inspired by the talents of people like Soule Mama and Gemma Patford I jumped on the rope vessel sewing bandwagon and ordered 100m of rope online to get me started! The job of this basket is to store my knitting yarn. I have promised myself that my yarn stash will not exceed the size of the basket…well, my promise is almost broken – it’s amazing how strategically you can stack yarn into a big mountain to keep it all in one basket! But really, there is no way that my knitting hobby is going to end up like my sewing hobby. I want to actually use the yarn I purchase, not have it sitting around in boxes and on shelves for years!
I actually did a bit of shopping around locally first but couldn’t find any cotton rope that was sturdy enough for a basket anywhere. In the US it seems that people use a rope referred to as “clothesline rope” – clothesline rope in our hardware stores is a plasticy, nylon material and wouldn’t be suitable for using to sew on the sewing machine. All of the rope in craft stores was more suited to making piping and using for drawstrings – soft and flimsy, so I took my hunting online and ended up purchasing 100m of 8mm cotton sash cord from Sydney Rope Supplies (free postage always wins me over!) I was umming and aahing about which rope thickness to use and went with the 8mm because I guessed it would be thick but not too thick (super technical guesstimation going on!) – turns out it was just a little too thick for my liking. I broke a couple of needles and resorted to using a leather needle which did the job but I still had to sew slowly to make sure the stitches were going all the way through. My zig-zag stitch wasn’t being great either and kept skipping a lot of stitches, but is hardly noticeable as I used white thread and the basket is still really sturdy.
This basket measures approximately 20cm high x 40cm wide at the top and it is pretty massive. It probably took me about 2 hours to sew, I didn’t do it all at once though…way too monotonous! For a basket this size I used about 30m of rope. To finish it off off, I hand-embroidered some detail at random places using some grey pearle 8 thread. This embroidery also helps to hide the cut ends at the beginning and end of the rope.
I’ve still got a lot of rope left, so I’ll use it all up before buying anymore but next time I will try the 6mm rope (which is also a bit cheaper). I think it will be easier for my needle to get through and won’t be as snug under the presser foot as well.
If you are wanting to make a rope basket for yourself, I found this video tutorial by Gemma Patford extremely helpful. It really is very simple, just takes a bit of time. I will definitley be making some more, they are such great storage vessels and I love how you can easily make them any shape or size you like.
