Today I’ve had a go at coiling some lovely hollow 5mm diam rubber tubing, stitched with reclaimed multi strand polyester/cotton yarn. This was labour intensive but produced quite a satisfying result.
There’s no hard and fast rule for starting a coiled basket, it depends very much on your material; this felt a little messy to start with until I got going on it (see bottom right above). At 6cm diameter I found that the spacing between some of the stitches was too much so needed to add another…not the most consistent stitching! To add strength I allowed the stitch into the row below to travel along the inside of the tubing before allowing the stitch to emerge; stitching into the rubber has caused it to tear in places however so need to look at coiling this type of material without puncturing it.
The finished piece (see image above, top right) was satisfyingly tactile, firm in shape but still flexible – can be turned inside out!
Oonagh Corr 