How to Make a Rope Bowl

Rope bowls are quick and easy to make, and offer a handy way to keep knickknacks together. Just grab some scraps, a jelly roll or a honey bun, and some cotton clothesline and we'll show you how to make a rope bowl!

What you’ll need to make these rope bowls

This simple project can be made on any sewing machine with a zig zag stitch. Here’s what you’ll need to make up to three bowls, each measuring 9” diameter and 3 ¼” tall.

Sewing Machine
Wonder Clips
Strips of fabric
Universal Sewing Machine Needle (100/16)
Cotton clothesline (100ft 7/32”) - available at Canadian Tire

Supplies for how to make a rope bowl tutorial

Choosing Fabric

The fabric used here is a Hoffman Bali Poppy pack of batik strips. A Bali Poppy has 20 strips per pack: enough to make three bowls (we used half of the 12 strips cut lengthways). You could also use a Moda Honeybun or even scraps from your collection to make these bowls.

Preparing to Sew

To minimize fraying, you want to make sure you have pinked (zigzag) edges on your fabric strips. If you have Moda precuts, these should be already cut like this. If not, you might want to pink tall four edges with pinking shears or a rotary cutter with a pinking blade—or if the fraying doesn’t bother you at all, go ahead and keep those edges straight! Cut the strips lengthways before you begin to make them narrower. They do not need to be neat or even. Set your sewing machine up with a new, heavy-duty needle and polyester thread. You will want to set it to a regular zig zag stitch. It will be beneficial to test out the width of the stitch before you get going, and you can also increase it a little if that will help you sew the rope side by side without slipping.

Start Sewing

10 metres of clothesline is enough to make the larger bowl, so if you have a new pack of rope, you should have plenty to make a really big bowl.

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Start off by taking the end of the rope and your first fabric strip and positioning them together.

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You want to make sure you wrap the very end of the rope with the fabric at a 45 degree angle, and then continue to wrap tightly for a few inches at a time. Hold the fabric to the rope with wonder clips.

Once you have a few inches wrapped, coil the fabric wrapped rope round on itself tightly twice to start the spiral that will form the base. You want to coil it tightly so that there isn’t a hole in the bottom.

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Pin through the rope to secure it if you need extra help holding the small coil together. You will need to remove the pins before you sew, but once you have it secured under the sewing machine foot with the surplus of the rope toward you and set up tp wrap in a clockwise direction.

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Sew back and forth a couple of times to secure together, then line up your stitches with the edge of the coil and the free rope so that you are ready to continue the spiral. As you work, you will stop and start, so make sure your needle is always in the down position.

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Keep wrapping the fabric as you stitch around and around.

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Once you get close to the edge, you can add your next strip by overlapping the start of the new strip with the end of the previous one and continue to wrap in the same direction a few inches at a time.

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Keep going until you have a spiral with a 3 ½” diameter to make a bowl like the one shown, or keep going until the base is the desired size if you want to go bigger.

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To start to shape the bowl, tilt it upwards.

You may be limited by contact with your machine, so if you want steeper sides, you will need to make the base larger and tilt at a sharper angle. Continue to wrap the fabric and turn the bowl as you do this.

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When your bowl gets to the size you want, and you’re ready to finish, cut the rope a little shorter than the final fabric strip and create a small loop, tucking the end under.

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Make your zigzag stitch wider to catch all three sections of rope and secure the end in place.

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To secure any loose wraps of fabric, you can reduce the width of your stitch back and then sew around the loop directly on top of the rope. Make sure to backstitch to secure your thread ends.

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Another design idea: If you like the look of the rope, you can sew it without wrapping it with fabric, or you could make a bowl like the smaller one pictured.

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To make this style, you won’t need to wrap any fabric round the rope initially, instead gradually add 3- 4 ½” lengths at random to give a scrappier effect.

Enjoy your rope bowls, once you’ve tried it you will want to make many more!