Recycled Climbing Rope Bowl

The bowl by the door that swallows your keys, your coins and the rest of it.

Made by coiling retired climbing rope round on itself and stitching it into one solid bowl. Rope that has held real falls, now holding your car keys. It is heavy enough to stay put on a shelf and soft enough that nothing you drop in it rattles.

Each bowl takes a long stretch of a single retired rope, so the colours band the whole way round. Whatever rope came in that week is what you get, and no two bowls come out the same.

The details

• Good for: keys, coins, rings, cables, odds and ends. A catch-all for a hallway, a desk or a bedside
• Size: about 22cm across at the widest point and 7cm tall. Handmade, so expect a little variation
• Not food safe. Please do not use it for fruit or anything you plan to eat. See the note below
• Materials: retired climbing rope, stitched with heavy duty thread
• Made: by hand in Aberdeen, Scotland
• Care: wipe with a damp cloth, keep it dry
• Shipping: free, always

Questions people ask

How big is it?
About 22cm across at the widest point and 7cm tall. Wide enough to take a full set of keys, a wallet and the loose change, without taking over the shelf.

Can I put fruit in it?
No, and I would rather be straight with you about that. This bowl is not food safe. The rope has spent its working life on rock and in rucksacks, and there is no way to clean it to a food standard. Keys, coins, jewellery and cables, yes. Anything you are going to eat, no.

So what do people actually use it for?
Mostly it lives by the front door and takes the keys, the loose change and the stuff that comes out of your pockets. Others use it on a desk for cables and pens, or on a bedside for a watch and rings.

What colour will mine be?
Whatever rope came in. Each bowl is coiled from one retired rope, so the colours band round it in the pattern that rope had. Send me a message before you order and I will tell you what is on the bench that week.

Why is it fifty five pounds?
A bowl eats a long stretch of rope and a lot of hours to coil and stitch by hand. It is the slowest thing I make. Shipping is on me.

Will it scratch my furniture?
No. It is rope all the way down, so the base is soft against a table or a shelf.

How do I clean it?
A damp cloth is all it needs. Do not soak it or put it in a machine, as the stitching and the rope core do not like a soaking.

Packaging: it comes in kraft card packaging you can recycle. Small orders are posted in a compostable mailer bag. To be straight with you, that bag is compostable plastic and needs an industrial composting facility, not a home compost bin. Bigger orders go out in cardboard boxes reused from a local logistics company.