Lyndi's Projects: Yarn-Wrapped Rope Rainbow

I saw these on one of my favorite blogs a week ago and I was OBSESSED with them and with trying to make one.

If you remember my post about Guest Room Planning, I thought it would go great in my guest room, which is black and white, with fun pops of color, drawn from this sign I bought on from the Etsy Shop Just Add Sunshine..

Step 1 was finding the rope...which was a challenge. I thought all home improvement stores would have it, but I searched online and they didn't. It was available from online retailers, but I wanted to see it before buying because it's hard to picture rope diameter. I ended up buying mine at Joann Fabric - in the crafting supply aisle, but it looks like it's no longer available online in their stores. Here is some white rope I found on Amazon that looks like it would work well - I think I'd try the 5/8 inch and 50 feet.

For this project you'll need:

white rope

yarn, in different colors and textures

scissors

hot glue gun/glue

needle and thread

blue tape (optional)

Step 2 - Lay out your rope to determine what length to cut each piece. This took quite a while for me to readjust. I think because of the limited selection in the store, I ended up with 16 feet, when I had been planning mentally, I was thinking I should get 24-30 feet. Mine turned out a fine size, so I would say anywhere between 16 and 30 feet would work. My rope measurements are: Red: 30 in., pink: 29.5 in., orange: 28 in., yellow: 26 in., green: 23 in., turquoise 1: 22.5 ____

Step 3 - Cut the rope. Once I had my rope laid out, with 8 rainbow arcs, I cut the ends, while it was in place like this.

Step 5 - start wrapping. Part of the look is leaving some of the white rope hanging at the end of each arc, so I measured two inches on each end and taped them with blue tape and then that's where I started and ended my yarn. It takes a while to wrap, but you'll get into a rhythm that works for you. I found that rolling the rope towards me and keeping the yarn taut by holding it in between my arm and my body worked for me.

I think I wrapped the orange too tightly, so it ended up longer than expected. I have no idea what happened with turquoise 1 - why is it so long?!

I LOVE seeing the progress - every step of the way I'm so crazy about this project! Since the wrapping makes your rope end up different lengths, I just taped or tucked in the ends of the yarn at this point, and waited to hot glue until the end.

Step 6 - I readjusted once everything was wrapped and removed some yarn and cut some extra length of rope and then I hot glued the beginning and end of each yarn piece.