Finishing rope coasters

Several years ago I made a whole bunch of coasters to give away at one of my women’s group Christmas party. Everyone liked them. I felt like Oprah – you get one, and you get one, and you get one!

I still have some rope left and thought I’d like to make a few more of these. So first I need to dye some rope. See this post on how I dye my rope.

For those coasters back then I felt like I left them unfinished. They needed something to cover up the ends.

So I got on Etsy and looked for coasters to see if I could find other ways of finishing them. I really liked the ones using cork. I also have cork fabric that I’ve not used yet, so this would be a great way of playing with it. I just cut a small piece and sewed it to the coaster covering up the messy end.

That worked fine, and I liked it, but I wanted to experiment more. I also saw coasters with leather and rivets. I had some leather in my stash. I tried it with leather and then the cork.

I really loved the look of the rivets. However, Dave who has worked a lot with wood, discouraged me from using them. They, more than likely, would scratch the table they would be used on. That made sense. Also, I was concerned about punching a hole in the coaster leaving the stitches to possibly unravel.

So it was back to sewing on the cork. I decided to cut the cork with a rounded edge on the front of the coaster, and played with straight and zigzag stitches. This is what I came up with after several attempts. I liked the zig zagging.

And here is my first bunch that will find their way to some new homes soon.

What is interesting is the whole artistic process. I could have left the coasters as is, but I wanted them to be a bit more finished. I loved experimenting until I found what I felt worked best. Both corks work.

I did learn something new this time around.The first time I made that bunch of coasters I dyed the rope all in one piece, and cut it to needed lengths. This time I cut it and then dyed it. That turned out to be a problem. Some of this cotton cording shrunk so they weren’t as large as I wanted them to be. Here are the small ones next to the size I like. They still would work, but I like the larger ones.

So I grabbed some more rope and dyed another big length of it. I also went with bright primaries.

Now to get back to sewing more. Hope you are having a good week.

For more inspiration check out Off The Wall Friday.