Weave a Fabric Bowl

I’ve kind of really gotten into bohemian style wall tapestries. I don’t hang them on the walls, though, because that seems, well, too bohemian for me :) The patterns are gorgeous, the colors vibrant and I find myself drawn to them even if I have no desire to hang them on a wall, which seems to be the most common purpose for them.

A while back ago I turned my yoga mat into a thing of beauty by updating it with one of these tapestries and the end result I loved SO MUCH.

Seriously. Look at that DIY mandala yoga mat! SO pretty!

Since I took a cutting of a tapestry for this project I had a good 1/3 of the thing left over and just sitting in my scrap fabric. It seemed such a shame to waste it being as pretty as it was but I couldn’t think of any way to use it.

Getting into the whole weaving thing I decided that I wanted to try to weave a basket. It seemed a very difficult project considering my limited weaving knowledge but that’s never stopped me before. I just so happened that I found these awesome cardboard basket frames that you weave around to make bowls super easily. I bought one and then the set sat in my guestroom for ages, lost and forgotten about.

But since Rob’s parents are coming to visit soon I needed to haul all of my crafty junk that just sort of sat there out and as I did I came across these frames. I think I was more excited about them the second time than the first because I ran and got some yarn and sat my butt down on the sofa in front of The Get Down and got down to it. The yarn was fun and all but then I remembered I wanted to make a fabric bowl and so I ran to dig out my scrap tapestry fabric.

What I learned is that I love making fabric bowls and I’ve already ordered up a few more kit/sizes AND The Get Down is amazing. Like, I don’t care for musicals AT ALL but I decided to give it a go and, man, it’s pretty amazing :) Check it out!\

For this project you will need:

• Clover Basket Frames
• Fabric (or use yarn, raffia, whatever) I used this mandala tapestry

The first step is to make circular cut outs using a pattern with the set to cover both sides of the form. This will be the top and bottom of your bowl. Be sure to do this BEFORE you turn all of your fabric into yarn in the steps below! :)

If using fabric you’re going to need to turn it into something similar to yarn. This is my piece, here. Since I wanted rough edges I used a pair of scissors to make small snip and then proceeded to rip the fabric the rest of the way to make my fabric yarn ball to work with.

Please excuse the rudimentary graphic above, but it gets the job done! Taking your fabric make your cut/tear the width you’d like the fabric yarn to be down one end. Don’t go all the way to the end of the fabric or you just made single strip. Instead go close to the edge, maybe within quarter to half an inch, and then stop. Move over the width of your fabric, from that side and rip/cut again. See how the picture shows that you’ll make your strips in a zigzag fashion?

If you wind your strips up as you go into a yarn ball you’ll keep yourself from a nightmare of untangling later. Need help with that? Back in the old days my Maxi and I made a tutorial so check that out – how to ball your yarn!

AT this point you just basically follow the package directions and weave this sucker up. You start with it being flat and as you work up you start to push the little arms inward to start to go up for the bowl shape. It’s pretty easy and you can watch TV while doing it. To keep my weave nice and tight I’d pull the fabric yarn straight down after each pass around the arms. In the end my bowl is quite dense and I love it!

Finishing the bowl up requires clothespins and a bit of patience but after you’ve done it once it seems like something that will be so much easier in the future.

Now because I did wind up having some areas where you could see the cardboard because my fabric went a bit wonky when braiding the top part I just wove a strip of fabric from the bottom up to the trouble area, over to cover the cardboard and then back through the bottom.

In the end it took me about an hour and a half total to make my bowl from cutting fabric into yarn to actually weaving the thing.