Today I’ve been working out how much cord I need to make circular coiled rope coasters and placemats. This coiled cord rag rug technique featured on the front cover of my second book “Rag Rug Techniques for Beginners”. It’s great for making robust rugs, baskets, bowls and much more, but up until now I’ve always kind of guessed at how far the cord will go…

These are just a few of the projects I’ve made in this technique so far…

Those projects are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be made in this beautiful textile technique. However, coasters and placemats are great beginner projects, which is why I’ve started my coiled cord calculations there. Read on below…

Coiled Cord Coaster:

When doing coiled rope projects, I always work with our Ragged Life cotton cord. It is the perfect thickness, softness and strength for this technique. It holds its shape well and isn’t too hard on the sewing machine. We sell it in 30 metre skeins on the Ragged Life website, but the question I always get asked is “how far does that go?”

Below is how I went about working that out…

Step 1: Starting at the beginning of the cord, I marked a blue line every 10 centimetres along the length of the cord. Every 50cm, I added another colour next to the blue line, so that in theory it would be easy to keep track of how far along the cord I was at all points. For example, I had a pink dot at 50cm, brown dot at 100cm, green dot at 150cm etc… I wrote down which colour corresponded to what length.

Step 2: I then starting covering the cord in fabric, making sure to wrap the end of the cord securely and well. Every 10cm (when I reached a blue line), I changed fabric. I thought this would give me a better chance of finding my place if I got lost mid-project.

Step 3: Every time I reached one of the non-blue dots (every 50cm of cord), I loosely wound up the fabric-covered cord in a spiral shape to get a rough idea of the size. I made a note of the approximate diameter of the circle every 50cm.

Step 4: When I thought that I’d covered enough of the cord to make a circular coiled cord coaster, I zig zag stitched the cord together on the sewing machine in a spiral (on my Janome, I put the stitch width at 6.0 and left the stitch length at default 2.0). It took 150cm of fabric-covered cord to make an 11cm diameter coiled cord coaster, which means that in theory the 30 metre lengths of cord we sell on the Ragged Life website could make 20 full coasters. That’s your Christmas gifts sorted then!

At this stage, I would normally have tapered off and sewn in the end of the cord to a smooth curve to finish off the coiled cord coaster. However, I wanted to keep the experiment going and see how much cord I would need to make a placemat. So on the experiment went…

Coiled Cord Placemats:

I continued wrapping the cord in fabric, changing material every 10cm, and measuring the rough diameter of the circle every 50cm as I had for the coiled cord coaster. This method isn’t fool-proof as it’s impossible to get the circle totally tight just laying it on the table, but it did give a good estimate. Every 250cm of cord, I zig zag stitched the cord together on my sewing machine, just to make sure that my diameter measurements were staying reasonably accurate.

When I reached the coloured dot that marked the 10 metre mark, I sewed the cord together (it felt like quite the milestone!) It was at this point (at 30cm in diameter) that the circle finally felt large enough to reasonably be called a placemat. So, at this size, you could make three placemats from our a 30 metre skein of our Ragged Life cotton cord.

However, placemats come in different sizes and I wanted to benchmark my placemat against a larger one I had at home that measured 35cm in diameter. So, I continued on, loosely measuring the diameter of the placemat every 50cm. A little while later, I had calculated that it took approx 15 metres of cord to make a a 35cm diameter circular placemat. So, at that size, you would get two placemats out of our 30m Ragged Life cord.

So, if I wanted to get a certain number of placemats from our Ragged Life cord, I would cut it into two or three equal lengths of cord before I began my project. That way, I could be sure to either end up with three approx 30cm diameter placemats or two 35cm diameter ones.

Final Cord Measurements:

I hope the above helps give a bit of a better idea of how circular coiled projects grow. The table below shows roughly how big the circle was in diameter every 50cm along the cord. I hope you find this table useful when calculating your next project!

NB: these measurements will vary slightly as it depends where on the circle you measure and the thickness of fabric used to wrap your cord.

I hope you found this little experiment useful. Stay tuned for bowl calculations next then baskets! To be the first to find out when these are ready to be shared, follow us on Facebook or subscribe to the Ragged Life Inspiration Newsletter.

Elspeth x