Reviewed by
Mary
Craftiosity supplies a bimonthly craft kit which includes everything you need to make something lovely and useful with your own two hands. Past boxes have had a huge variety of projects, including a clock, a mobile, needle felting, and lots more. It’s a great way to try out lots of different techniques, and have something lovely at the end of it!
Craftiosity boxes are always beautifully packed, lovely tissue wrapping and an invitation to adventure inside. Very enticing!
This month’s craft is a Gathering Knot Placemat.
There are full instructions in the box, which include step by step explanations and photographs, or if you’re a visual learner they also provide a video to follow along with.
Everything you need is included, except for some basic items like scissors and tape measure.
The idea itself is quite simple. You cut a number of lengths from the yarn (cotton and excellent quality) and wrap them around the rope, leaving some spaces for variety.
The different colours and blank spaces give texture and variety to the final pattern.
This is quite a lengthy procedure, as it’s a lot of rope!
Then you curl the rope around sewing it into a gradual spiral.
There’s a needle and thread included, ad most usefully, a thimble! That’s because pushing the needle through the rope is quite hard work, so it’s essential to protect your fingers.
The stitches don’t look pretty, but they will be on the underside of the mat so won’t show.
Once it’s curled round and sewn into place, you trim and fluff out the final end of the rope, and your mat is complete!
The different colours make a nice random pattern, and it’s a good size for a placemat for a serving dish, though it’s not suitable for hot dishes.
There’s also the option to cut the rope into four pieces and make coasters instead, but I liked the idea of a single mat.
By Evelyn 
