How to Make a Rope Basket

By Mavis Butterfield on January 3, 2017 - 50 Comments

Today my friend Zoe is popping over to do a super fun guest post on how to make a rope basket. Thanks for sharing your skills with us, Zoe!

Hello to all my friends here in Mavis’s corner of the web!

I’m excited to be sharing with you a tutorial on how to make a rope basket. I started doing these about 2 years ago and am having a blast.

They don’t typically make it into my etsy shop as they go fast here locally but now you can make yourself one! Have fun with this how to make a rope basket tutorial. The options are endless with size, color, shape, and handle variations.

Step 1.

Choose fabric scraps and rope. I use quilt cotton weight fabrics as that’s mostly what I have. Anything fairly lightweight will work. Heavier fabrics will get too bulky.

For rope, I really like cloth wash line. It’s sturdy but not extremely thick, which is necessary to fit under the machine’s presser foot. Piping also works. Keep in mind that the thinner the rope, the more yardage will be needed to make a bowl.

For a bowl about 8 inches in diameter you’ll need 8-10 yards of rope.

Step 2.

Cut strips approximately 3/4″ wide. Bias and cross grain strips work best as they have a little stretch to help ease itself together when wrapping the rope but if my strips are long grain, I use those too.

Want another thrifty tip?

I’m all about using up what I have to save it from the landfill!
If you have selvages left after cutting, save those for the kids to use as string in all their various projects.

Step 3.

Choose a strip to begin with. This will be the center of the bowl bottom. Hold it in your hand at an angle and lay the rope on with the end of the rope being in the center of the end.

Step 4.

Fold down the top corner.

Step 5.

Fold left side over.

Step 6.

Fold right side down just a bit, at a wide angle.

Step 7.

Fold right side over completely to the left and begin wrapping, always wrapping from right to left. Keep it snug but not ridiculously tight.

Step 8.

Once you have about 10 inches wrapped, hold the end with a clothespin.
Time to begin sewing!

Choose your thread (top thread will show on the inside of the bowl, bobbin thread on the outside). Set the stitch to a fairly large zigzag.

Step 9.

Wrap a bit of a circle with your fabric covered rope. Begin sewing in center (where the scissors point is in photo). Remember to backstitch!

Step 10.

When it’s time to pivot, put needle in down position.

Step 11.

Slowly turn and keep sewing, making sure to keep rope close to the center circle. We don’t want holes in the bottom of our bowl.

Step 12.

Sew until you have about 4 inches of wrapped rope remaining. Time to add another fabric strip. Unwrap 3/4 inch of fabric.

Step 13.

Lay new strip on the old one.

Step 14.

Begin wrapping again, being sure the end of the last strip stays tucked in. The little corner that does stick out a bit will need to be caught in your stitching.

Step 15.

Keep wrapping, sewing, and joining ends until bowl bottom is as large as you want it. Mine is about 6 1/2 inches.

Step 16.

Tip the bottom up and continue sewing. Keep it tipped so the sides start to curve up. The higher the tip, the straighter the sides.

Another way to make the sides straighter is to keep tension on the rope as you are sewing. The harder you pull on it, the straighter the sides.

I enjoy watching the sides begin to grow!

Step 18.

If you run out of bobbin thread, just reload it and start again. Backstitch!

Step 19.

To end, cut the cord at an angle.

Step 20.

Wrap to hide the cord.

Step 21.

With 5-6 inches of wrapped cord remaining, make a loop and stick the end in between the last two cord rounds to hide it. Secure with a pin. You can see my blue seam ripper pointing to the white pin head.

Step 22.

Slowly (don’t hit the pin!) sew the loop in place. Backstitch!

Step 23.

Remove the pin and admire your bowl!

If you’d rather not sew but enjoy cooking, you can always sample my recipes over at my blog. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day!

Zoë

Here are some more of Zoë’s amazing tutorials:

Blue and White Postage Stamp Quilt Tutorial
How to Make Crazy Patch Pot Holders
How to Make LuoPads

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