Macrame- Feathers

I think of all of the crafts that I've done over the years, the yarn crafts are my favorites. I taught myself to look knit about five years ago, and how to crochet two years ago. I found that the easiest way to figure out what I was supposed to do was by watching YouTube videos. I would watch the same video at least ten times trying to figure out how the hell they made the crochet hook do that. I even slowed down the video once when trying to learn the magic ring and yelled at the woman for not going slow enough. The point is, with some of the more intricate crafts, you have to see what the steps are and how stuff works and YouTube is generally better than diagrams or pictures.

This week I am trying Macrame, which is probably as close to a yarn crafts as we can get without using yarn. Using rope, you tie different types of knots to create a pattern. You can use thinner rope to make jewelry like my wish bracelets, or use thicker rope to create elaborate decorations for your home. For today I found a YouTube video that explains the basic knots needed, and another that explains how to make feathers.

Supplies:

-Cotton or hemp rope

-Small wooden dowel

-Sharp scissors

-Felt

-Wire brush

-Fabric glue

I focused mainly on the first three knots; the larkshead knot, square knot, and spiral. These seemed like a good place to start for the week. I couldn't find cotton rope so I ended up using polyfiber clothesline. I also got some hemp rope but I didn't think that would be a good material to practice with. I cut off two pieces of rope, each about 12-18". The larkshead was simple enough, just a kind of slipknot to hold the rope onto the wooden dowel.

The square knot was fairly straightforward as well. It's pretty much just the two outside ropes trying a knot around the two center ropes. The important part is to keep alternating which side you start with. I did notice after a few knots that it was a pattern I was familiar with, which is probably not surprising. Once I got the hang of the pattern it came together fairly quickly. Since the center ropes don't do anything, they end up being much longer than the outside ropes.

The spiral knot, as it turns out, is the exact same as the square knot except that you aren't alternating. Repeating the exact same knot on the same side makes the rope twist. It was really cool seeing this one come together. I know that there are more complex knots out there, but these are deceptively simple. I did notice that my edges were beginning to fray, so I used some tape to keep my edges in place.

Using the second video, I switched gears and began work on my feather. I began by cutting out a feather shape out of the felt. Then I took a length of rope, folded it in half, and tied off the end. I cut another dozen pieces of rope, each about 18", and began attaching them to the main rope using the larkshead knot. When I got to the end and began trying to brush out the rope, I realized that my polyblend rope wasn't going to work because it had a filler in the middle that wasn't going to feather with the rest of it. I tried maybe a little longer than I should have to brush it out, but eventually I admitted defeat and started over with my hemp rope.

Because the rope is much thinner, I made a smaller feather cutout this time around. I redid all of the knots and luckily, when it was time to brush out the rope, it actually feathered. I did have to help it along by hand a little bit, and I feel like there was a lot of the fibers that came off on the brush. Either way, it actually looked like a feather. I used my fabric glue to attach the feather to the felt, both along the stem and a little bit at the edges. I trimmed the edges to make it neat, and that's it!

My next project is going to be much larger and probably overly ambitious, but since it only uses the knots we talked about today, it can easily be done by someone who is just starting out. I am already having much more fun than last week.