My beloved serger is in the shop this week and I miss her ever so much. On the bright side though her absence has pushed me out of my basic knit tee rut and into new crafty spaces which has been quite a lot of fun. Initially I had planned on taking this time to practice sewing woven fabrics on my regular machine but predictably I’ve done something else entirely.
One of my favorite textile designers posted some beautiful little crochet rainbows a while back and I’ve been dying to try my hand at one. I don’t know the first thing about crochet but that didn’t seem relevant and I added bunches of colorful cotton yarn to my stash in preparation. I’m pretty amazing at buying supplies, it may be my #1 talent.
(you can find that inspo here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnxucManBkI/ If you aren’t familiar with her work I encourage you to browse around her wall for a bit, it’s a real delight)
Now I guess I could have just learned some crochet basics but instead I went with a somewhat simpler method and quite honestly I’m pleased as punch with the results.
It’s really a delightfully easy project and there are a number of different applications. So far I’ve made a couple tree ornaments and a larger wall hanging for my children’s bedroom. Next up on the “to make” list is a smaller version to hang on necklaces for my girls and then perhaps try adding in different yarn textures… which of course means more supply shopping, my favorite!
Here is a quick run through the steps:
I found most of this at Hobby Lobby. The rainbow of cotton yarn actually came as one single skein so I was able get a little bit of all the colors and still use their 40% off 1 item coupon on all of it, score! The rope is also from Hobby Lobby, in with the twine and leather crafts. I wish I could tell you the exact size but I removed the packaging a while back. The remaining tools and supplies you will most likely have laying around already (comb, marker, scissors, needle, thread).
Lay out the rope in the general size/shape you want and mark off where you will wrap it.
3. Wrap
Starting just below your mark, tie the colored yarn to the rope and begin wrapping it evenly around. Continue wrapping until you hit your mark on the other side, go a few more times around to cover that mark and tie off (leaving 4-5″ extra length). Repeat this process for all the rows.
After wrapping all of your rope pieces lay them back out as you want them and stitch together (Heads up: your thread knot will pop right through the yarn so be sure to quickly thread the needle back through it as pictured above before moving on).
Additionally, if you find things are shifting around too much you can knot the colored yarn together and tie in the middle to hold the rainbow in it’s proper shape while you sew it…
Use a large blunt needle to thread any loose yarn back into the row. If your knotted your yarn earlier you can also just pull tight and snip off the extra.
Now that you have assembled your rainbow you can start fluffing the extra rope left at the bottom. Twist the rope strands in the direction opposite to that which they are coiled in and gently separate them.
After separating the rope strands you can give them a little extra cloud like pouf by combing them out.
8. Hanging Loop
Another optional feature you can add is a little loop for hanging your masterpiece. Just pass some yarn or string through the top row and knot.
