Coiled Trivet

I'm going through a dry spell, creativity and sewing wise, so I decided to try one of my many goals for the year.  I have to add that I had trouble coming up with goals for creativity, so that segment of my goal list is pretty short.  That's ok with me, not all my goals have to be in place the first week of the year.  I think that sometimes you don't have to look for things, sometimes if you relax, they come to you.

I've been attracted to the coiled trivets for a long time and enjoyed watching Ann make one at a quilting retreat, so on the list it went.  I'd always imagined that they would be hard to do, that the cord would be stiff and that I'd have to fight to get it under the pressure foot.  Turns out that isn't the case at all, at least not with the 3/16" cord that I used.  The machine didn't stitch the cord, just the fabric.

I used 1" wide strips, mostly width of fabric, since shorter ones would have a much scrappier look.  I used a zigzag stitch, 2.5 length and 2.0 width.  I started coiling the fabric a couple of inches from the end of the strip, then twisted the end fabric for the center.  I stitched a cross over that center part, then started stitching around the coils.  When I needed to change fabrics, I just wrapped the new piece over the end of the previous one.  At the end, I left a little fabric and tried to tuck it in.

This took longer than I thought it might, but it was mindless and enjoyable.  And it's really my type of thing, using up some fabric scraps to make something functional.  Who knew? 

I used cording from the drapery section of the fabric store and it was pretty soft, which was nice.  I know that some people use clothesline.  I had some clothesline for just that purpose, but I have a feeling that I sent it to Goodwill in a purging time.  It would be less expensive than the cording and would be a little more rigid.