Fishnet Jar

One day last week I was trying to play violin. Unfortunately, my e-string peg kept slipping. I was a bit frusterated. Fortunatley, when I got home, Patrick had a great solution: the local dollar store.  We went and bought some chalk line, which includes chalk dust that I could put on the peg to help it stick. Since I rarely just go to the dollar store, get what I need and leave (there are too many fun and funny things there), we walked around the aisles for a bit and wound up with some string.  Not just any string, but a 2 pack of "high quality" string. Pretty exciting, eh? 

Patrick is nearing the end of the semester, which means he is nearing the end of his degree. Thus, he has been staying up a bit later than he sometimes would.  I tend to just wait for him to be done and then we go to bed at the same time. This particular day I had finished dishes and the apartment was clean, so I had a few minutes to do something before bed. The string was still sitting on the table and I have a ton of pasta sauce jars just laying around (I don't know what to do with them all but it seems a shame to get rid of them). I decided to make a fishnet around the jar. 

This technique could really be used on any jar or bottle. It just needs to have a neck of some kind so the string can be tied at the top. First I cut six lengths of string. They were long enough that when I folded them in half and tired them around the jar, they were still about twice as long as the jar. I had plenty of extra string so I probably could have used less, but cut on the long side for your jar so you won't run out. I then tied each string around the top of the jar and organized them so they were evenly spaced. This gave the neck a thicker wrapped area on the neck. Alternately, I could have tied a shorter piece of string around the top and tied each of the longer strings onto that one to give it a different look.

Next, I took a single strand from a group of two and a single strand from the group next to it and tied a square knot to form a triangle. I then did this with the remaining groups all the way around. I tried to make the triangles roughly even, but I didn't measure. I think the imperfections give it more character (and is less work). If you want it to look even, you could measure each string and mark it at the same point with a marker and then tie on those markings. After the first level of knots, my jar looked like the picture to the left.

Next I did the same technique with my new groups of two. This time the strings mad diamonds. I again just eyeballed where I wanted the knot, but if you are measuring, this is where you will want to measure the next level. Don't just measure equal intervals all the way down at once because the knots will probably not be all equal so things with get off. 

At this point I contemplated just finishing . If you desire, you could just pull the loose strings straight down and tie them off on the bottom.  I decided to go on, but it would have looked roughly like the picture to the right if I had stopped. You can really stop at any point from here on, it will just give it a different look. 

To finish off I made sure to tie my last row of knots so they sat just on the edge of the jar when I pulled the string tight. I then took to sets of strings that were opposite each other and tied them tightly across the jar. It helps to get a tight knot to have someone put their finger in the middle of the knot as you tie it. I then tied another of the two sets that were across from each other in a knot around that knot; that is to say I tied the first cross over of the knot under the existing knot and then tied the second cross on top of the knot. I repeated with the remaining two string pairs.

I filled my jar with some clear and bluish marbles I happened to have, though you could put just about anything. Shells would look pretty. I think it turned out pretty well for an under-and-hour  project. If you have some writing on the lid that you don't like, you could simply spray paint the lid. I actually spray painted the lids of three other jars black. They are sitting on the shelf  in front of the mirror in my living room.