Eco Wrap with Cloth, Furoshiki

Furoshiki is a Japanese wrapping cloth. The Japanese use a variety of sumptuous fabrics and prints for these environmentally friendly wrappings.

These simple-to-sew wraps will add that extra bit of goodness to this season of gift giving.

Isn't this the perfect pirate wrap for a bottle of rum? I am itching to add an earring and Johnny-Depp style accessories. 

About the fabric ...

The fabric and size you use will depend on the item being wrapped. For wine bottles, I recommend a 20" square wrap using lightweight double-sided fabric so the wrapping doesn't get too bulky: shot cotton, silk or rayon for example. I am using shot cotton. 

Here's what you'll need in addition to the fabric: Needle, thread or sewing machine 

scissors or rotary cutter (or you can just tear the fabric)

  

Directions for a 20" x 20" Furoshiki 

Cut 4 pieces of fabric 10 1/2" square.

 

 

Lay the four pieces out as desired

Stitch each pair together and then stitch the two pairs together.

Clip the seams almost to the stitch and rough them up so that the short threads come loose (or simply throw it in the wash). 

I used four different colors of shot cotton on this Furoshiki, the seams will show as a nice fringe. The shot cottons and dupioni silks are perfect for this frayed edge treatment. The different colors of fiber in the warp and seft showing at the fray are too delicious to waste.

 

To create a fringe, snip along the edge of the fabric - just before the stitch line

and rub the edges to lose the bits of fiber

I learned this simple technique from Jude Hill at Spiritcloth.

If you are using another double sided fiber (such as a batik), and would like to hide the seams, use a french seam or a mutation of the Korean pojagi stitch.

Here's a simple way to do Pojagi on a sewing machine. Not as fab as the handmade way but ... oh, what the heck. I'll make amends to the Korean Pojagi stitch at another time. Victoria of Silly BooDilly here, introduced me to the Pojagi stitch.

You can either hand stitch or machine stitch.  

Wrap it up:

I made this little furoshiki a couple of months ago inspired by Mairuru's post here. She has a tutorial there on hand Pojagi. Very cool. I backed my furoshiki with another layer of cloth to give the it more structure.

I like to use it for my sewing supplies when out and about. And here is an up close look at the hand pojaki stitch (the red stitch). I like to think there is magic in the imperfectly matched squares.

Furoshiki.com has a great resource Here that illustrates how many items are wrapped.

Check out Traci Bunkers Moldable Stamps tute. Those stamps could be used on a whole piece of fabric for a great furoshiki.

You could follow Jill Berry's Geo Papers Tutorial, then scan the Geo Paper into your computer, resize it using Gloria Hansen's tutorial on resizing a photo and print out the artwork on muslin for another sort of furoshiki. To print on muslin: iron the muslin to a piece of freezer wrap and send it through your printer. How cool would that be? Just don't wash it or read up some more on printing on fabric. 

Jane LaFazio's techniques for sketching on muslin gift bags could be applied here as well.

Hey, going last really rocks! 

See the entire list of tutorials and links here on my blog. I'll link it up in the sidebar as well! 

 

 

Comments

[Gloria]

What fun! Thanks Diana. :)

[Laurie]

Very, very nice, Diana! Easy, beautiful, and fun. I am a novice at sewing so the technique for the Pojagi stitch is appreciated - I have a new sewing machine with lots of fancy stitches.

[deanna7trees]

oh yes. earrings and a necklace. great post...all of it.

[Jeannie]

Thank you Diana for the tutorial and the links! Forget the wrapping paper! The gifts under the tree would look so beautiful wrapped this way. Of course, someone will probably ask for a bike, do I have enough fabric?

[jude]

great ideas, and thanks for the mention....