Quick Stitch - Yarn Bowl

Choosing a project for a single skein of beautiful wool yarn is a dilemma to be savoured and with the increasing availability of quality wool yarn, this is happily becoming a more regular occurance.  Plus by adding in a few of my own spun and natural dye yarns, this delightful dilemma led me to my latest small bowl project offering - yarn bowls.

My first yarn bowl creation came into being from one of my natural solar dye yarns - starting as a very pleasing skein that I purchased last Spring from Orkney Tweed.  Watching the random colours appear as I wrapped and stitched was very satisfying and had the bonus of stitching without too much precision.  Working an aran weight yarn with a chunky wool cord filler, the bowl took shape pretty quickly and it was very tactile to work on dreary winter days.  My yarn bowl collection grew slowly over the winter weeks and I began to hatch a plan to share my new dalliance with like-minded others.

And so a bright Spring sharing day arrived with 10 lovely ladies in the Creative Hub in Taunton's Brewhouse Theatre.  We began our day simply with colourful aran wool yarn, large tapestry needles and a wool filler cord - my choice in this sample is a variegated yarn The Croft by West Yorkshire Spinners and the filler is garden twine by Twool.  The yarn bowl creations each began by securing the yarn in the end of the filler cord and then wrapping up and around the cord seven times - taking the needle back through the filler after the wraps to secure.

Next was repeating  this wrapping and securing a couple more times, so that around 3cm of cord was covered.  While there are no hard and fast rule about which direction to wrap the yarn, wrapping towards you feels the most logical for both left and right handed working. Once a reasonable length of filler cord was wrapped, the filler end was neatly trimmed and a tight coil created - this was then secured by taking the needle and yarn right through the coil and then back again to get to where the yarn was wrapped up to. 

Then to wrap yarn around the filler cord another seven times, but this time taking the yarn over the cord just wrapped and also over the wrapped cord in the row beneath. This method of wrapping and stitching then became the method of joining the wrapped cord rows together throughout the project.  After making a joining stitch, it's best to pull the yarn tight before making the next seven wraps - the stitch will loosen a little as you move on.  It's also a good idea to by let the needle dangle every so often to get unhelpful twist out of the yarn.

The wrapping and stitching continued in this mindful way - seven wraps and then one large stitch to attach the wrapped cord to row beneath.  I find that the quickest way to wrap the filler cord is by holding it firmly just beyond the point of wrapping and let the coil dangle - of course others may find other efficient ways.  To join a new length of yarn, stitch the old yarn end into previous wraps and thread in a new yarn leaving a tail - I tug these tight after moving forward a bit and then closely snip to avoid tangles when working.

As the coil emerged, a decision needed to be made as to when to start shaping and building the bowl sides.  This is a bit of a guesstimate for a first bowl and looking at the shape of bowls in other mediums can be a help.  To start the shaping, the wrapped filler cord is placed slightly on top of the wrapped cord beneath, instead of alongside, and is stitched in the same way.  It takes a few rounds of doing this before the shaping becomes clear and it's helpful to 'train' the bowl into the desired shape with your fingers as it starts to emerge.

The steepness of the sides is determined by the  degree the the wrapped filler cord is placed and stitched onto the row beneath.  A slight overlap will give a gradual gradiation and the more the overlap is increased, the steeper the sides will become.  It's best to adjust the position of the overlap gradually over a few rows and this avoids a ridge forming from too large an adjustment.  I rather like to bring the bowl shape inwards in the final rows and I do this by overlapping the current wrapped cord beyond the last row for at least several rounds.  

Then comes the decision on how to finish the bowl off - other than just stopping which creates an unattractive cliff edge and an alterative method is better by far.  Coiling the end section of the wrapped filler cord and stitching onto the side of the bowl is an attractive and easy choice - as is a simple fold back of the last inch of wrapped cord shown in my first picture on this post.  Here are a few of the bowls completed by my students for other ideas and I will happily add to these as more yarn bowl creations emerge over the weeks ahead :)