Just Coastin' Along

 When I was at a friend's house last week, she showed me some small bowls and coasters that she had made with Jelly Rolls and clothesline cord.  A while back I made a  clothesline project that was huge and it kind of burned me out on the technique.  After seeing her method, I became re-engaged in the process and decided to give it another try.
To begin with, I didn't use a Jelly Roll (mainly because I didn't have one).  Instead, I used some fat quarters that I DID have.  The method I had used before involved sewing the jelly roll fabrics together into a very long strip, pressing them as if you were going to make them into a bias tape and then enclosing the clothesline within the strip and sewing through the entire thing--all the way down

with a straight stitch (which was mighty difficult to keep straight with all of those layers).  The result of this was that you had more bulk than you needed and the finished piece was somewhat floppy.
This is how my friend did it:
She cut her 2 1/2" Jelly Roll strips into 1 1/4" strips (so you'd get twice the length).  She then sewed the pieces into a long strip.  At this point, she wrapped the finished strip around the clothesline and--with a cording foot--sewed down the entire length, encasing the clothesline..  She previously moved the needle to the right so that it wouldn't sew into the clothesline itself. 

After this was finished, she trimmed the extra fabric away, leaving less that a 1/16" edge from the stitching.  She was then ready to start her finished shape which she formed using a zig-zag stitch.  This method really appealed to me and I've been having fun making the coasters pictured above.
The clothesline I used was 100 feet long and was 3/16" thick.  It was composed of a cotton outer shell that was reinforced with a poly core.  If you don't have a cording foot to sew the fabric over the clothesline, you can use a zipper foot and I used cotton thread.  I also used an open-toed foot to do the zig-zag stitching--which allows you to see what you are doing.  It took almost the entire
roll to make 16 coasters.

The pieces that I have made so far have ended up quite firm and I've been quite pleased with the result.  Give it a try and see what  you think.