Eddie

Several people asked if I would do a tutorial on how to make the fabric bowls that I posted pictures of so here it is.

I have 20 steps to post, so will do so in successive posts.

First, "What's a fabric bowl?" Well, it's basically a bowl that's made from fabric covered clothesline cord that has been sewn together in a spiraling way to form the bowl. Here are a couple of pictures of the first one I made:

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And here are a couple of pics of the second one that I made which is the basis for this tutorial:

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First, let's talk about the clothesline we need. I used cotton clothesline made by SecureLine that is 3/16 inch wide. I bought this at Wal-Mart. The person who I learned this method from said that it’s important to use cotton clothesline and not the nylon or synthetics. This 100 foot package was more than enough to make that first bowl shown above. I used about 3/4 of the package (75 feet) on it. The second bowl was larger so I used up all of a package plus the remainder of that first package, so about 125 feet.

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Next, fabric. Obviously, your choice will affect the end result. I liked using fabrics that had large patterns to them because the color change then becomes very obvious in your bowl. Fabric with a tiny print won't look as variegated. The strips are cut on a bias and are 3/4 inch wide. You want the ends to all have the chisel end facing the same direction. So what I did was took my fabric and laid it out just as it was cut from the bolt and cut both the selvage edge and the folded edge off so that I now had two piece of fabric. I think turned that bottom layer over so that both pieces were facing right side up and layered together. I then cut my bias strips so that the chisel ends were all facing the same direction as shown below.

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And here's a big pile of strips ready for wrapping.

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Begin by putting some Elmer's white glue on the end of the clothesline and wrap the end of the fabric piece around it, leaving about 1/4 inch that extends beyond the end. Since this will be the center of the bowl, you want that little extra fabric there so the end of the cord doesn’t show.

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Now, just lay a bead of white glue down the cord (very sparingly!) and begin wrapping the strip down the cord, overlapping about 1/4 inch as you go.

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Just keep on wrapping. When you get to the end of a strip, put some glue on the end of it and secure it down to the cord. Then get another strip, glue the end of it, and keep on as before. Wrapping the cord is the most time consuming part of this whole thing. Sewing it is a breeze, it only took me about a hour to sew mine. Wrapping the cord, however, took several hours.

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Once all the cord is wrapped, we are ready to sew. Begin by spiraling the cord as shown into about a 1.5 to 2 inch circle.

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Now, we need to sew an X across these spirals to hold them in place while we start the zig zag sewing. So go ahead and sew an X across them.