Macramé is a French word that means knot, although derived from Turkish and Persian or Farsi. It is a craft that was already practiced in antiquity between the Assyrians and the Persians. The Arabs made it known in Europe, and from here it went to America, where the typical macrame-based hammock was invented.
It is a way of weaving ropes or threads of cotton, linen, silk, jute or other textile materials of sufficient resistance, based on knots, and from this, it is used to make various decorative, fashionable, home objects, such as bracelets, valances for curtains, bags, etc. Here we leave you this article that you will surely find interesting to make macrame bracelets.
In macramé there are many different knots, more than fifty, and among the best known and used are the chevron -in the form of a circumflex accent-, the simple, the rope, the diagonal, the butterfly, the spiral. So that you learn the basic notions of this popular craft work, we give you instructions on how to make macramé.
What do you need:
- A piece of strong cord of about 30 centimeters
- Two 1 meter lengths of rope folded in half
- A table or cardboard
Instructions
- First step. Take the guide cord and one of the folded ropes with which you will work and place them on the cardboard, cardboard or wooden plank, or table that you have to make the macramé. Put the string under the guide string – it will be horizontal – with the point where it folds under, leaving the part that makes the loop back just a couple of centimeters above. The shape will resemble a sewing needle and its buttonhole.
- Second step. You now have the guide string horizontal and straight on the work surface, and the bend point of the work string below, with the tips of the work string forming a vertical perpendicular to the guide string below. Take these points, and as if you were sewing, insert them into the buttonhole formed by the fold or loop, but passing over the guide cord. Pull on these ends until the two ends of the rope have passed completely through, closing the knot that will be formed. After pulling up and closing the knot, pass the ends of the knotted working rope down so that the two strands of the rope go down again as you look down at the table where you are making the macrame. You already have the starting knot.
- Third step. Take another work rope folded in half, and put it next to the first repeat the previous steps to get to another knot. Now you will have four strands or threads in parallel and vertical, perpendicular to the guide cord. Now is when the macramé begins, when we are going to make the first knot of many that will lead to having your bracelet or your mat, or whatever you want to do.
- Fourth step. You have a horizontal leader cord to which you have tied two ropes with the result that you now have four ends coming down from the leader cord. Of the four parallel and vertical ropes, take one from one end and another from the other, that is, if you number the ends from 1 to 4, take 1 and 4, and separate them forming 45 degree angles, and thus they will look like triangles equilateral without the base.
- Fifth step. Fold the left or 1 string to close the left triangle by perpendicularly and horizontally crossing the 2 and 3 vertical strings, and 4, above, forming what will look like a figure like the number four. The string that forms the right triangle, number 4, must be, not below string 1, which forms the base of the four, like the central strings, 2 and 3, but above it.
- Sixth step. String 4 that forms the right triangle without base is stretched to the tip. Now you have to bend it and bring the tip, diagonally and upwards to the left, below the place where the central or 2 and 3 vertical strings intersect with the horizontal string 1, which formed the left figure four. As if the left figure four were a buttonhole, take the end of string 4 that comes bent from the right up diagonally to the left inside that buttonhole and pull it as you pull the horizontal string 1 that it goes to the right and forms the base of the four drawn on the left. Pulling and closing will form the first flat half knot of the macrame you want to make.
- Seventh step. To make the complete knot, you have to go through the same steps but with the rope furthest to the right, number 4, starting by making the figure of four, but now in the right area and with the same steps to spin the other half knot. Thus we will have the complete flat knot.
Tips
- Macramé is not complicated to learn and is based on practice. From the flat knot you can move on to other knots that will serve us for different tasks and tasks.
- If the first flat half knot is repeated, that is, always continuing with the rope on the left, a spiral knot will be created.