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Sunday, July 20, 2008

My First Fully Covered Macrame Bottle!

Well, I'm back from a LOOOONG vacation, so now I can get back to blogging. I've missed it and have quite a bit of catching up to do. Here's a UFO (UnFinished Object) that I finally finished. I began this over a year ago, while in England for the IGKT Silver Anniversary AGM. It's a small bottle -- just a plain old 125-ml 'mixer' bottle from the pub near where the meeting was held. I didn't want to start with a HUGE project, for fear it would take too long to finish. It wasn't all that difficult, really, with pointers from Ken Elliott, and quite a few online Q&A sessions with Gordon Perry -- Thanx, Ken and Gordon!
The problem I had was at the end -- the decreasing part. I wasn't positive about how to go about it, so I sort of had to wing it, and that gave me a terrible case of the '3 P's' (Perfectionism, Procrastination and Paralysis). But I finally decided that I would try it, and just figure it out, without cutting any of the cords until I was certain it was correct. And it worked. I'm very pleased with it and have even begun covering my second bottle -- it's well underway, as a matter of fact. I also have plans for two more projects! Okay, just a little obsessed ... but it's all Ken's fault for getting me started ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it! LOL
Here are the pictures I took -- the first one is the only 'in progress' picture that I can find, but the rest are all of the completed bottle. Those of you who were at Fareham 2007 will probably recognize the cord I used. That's right -- it's from that tangled mass of cord that was so lovingly untangled by devoted members who needed the 'therapy' as Europa referred to it. LOL! Thanx again, everyone, who worked at untangling all that cord. The bottle is even more special to me, because I can still hear the ROAR of cheering that went up when Europa and Mikio met at the middle of that last length (there was so much of it that we had to keep cutting off sections and winding it onto spools)! I may even still have a bit of this cord leftover -- I gave a LOT of the spools of it away at the meeting, so there's not much left, after this project. : - )







9 comments:

Jane Eborall said...

WOW, that's amazing. I'm gobsmacked.
JaneEb

Stormdrane said...

Very nice!

Tattycat said...

Now you've done it! I simply CAN NOT start anything else and this has my fingers itching to bring my macrame back out from years of exile. Very stunning!

Unknown said...

Your macrame is lovely. The knots are very pretty.

TomKnots said...

I do mostly half hitching but I have seen enough macrame to recognize a very nice piece of work. I do bottle covering with half hitching which has a different look but only uses a single strand.

Tom B. www.tomknots.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Greetings.
I'm going to try and make one myself. How can one avoid the coating slip upwards during the making around the conical part of the bottle?

LoopyLacer said...

Hi, fabiano:

I don't know what kind of bottle you are using, but most bottles have some sort of cap, under which will be a smaller space. If you look closely at the third picture in the post about my bottle, you may see a spot, about 1/2 inch (5 cm) from the top, where it gets just a tiny bit narrower. I made the knots just a tiny bit more tightly, to tighten the covering just enough to hold it onto the bottle. Granted, this didn't happen until my seventh row of knots (the cording I used is only 0.9 mm in diameter), so there is a bit of time where I was having to hold the covering on the bottle.

Hope this helps...

Please do show pictures when you get yours done, too!

Lily

Nicolette said...

Hello Everyone!

I have never macramed yet but I would love to cover a bottle with a simple design using hemp or cotton like the sailors do. I have searched and search and can't seem to find anyone locally/or books or even an online pattern for one. I'm probably looking in the wrong place. Could someone help me out with this?

Nicolette
nicoletteburley@gmail.com

Alcosinus said...

Awesome knotty work...
So splendid !!!

Best regards,

Al of France