I’ve always loved macrame and its intricate beauty, but whenever I think about trying it, it just seems to complicated and difficult. It’s true that the more complex forms of macrame can take hours of practice and even years to fully master. But don’t let that deter you! Some of the basic macrame knots are actually not difficult to learn, and once you get the hang of it you can make some really beautiful things with it. Read on to learn how to macrame, and make a beautiful wall hanging with it! All you need for this project is some rope and a stick! I got my rope from Home Depot – it’s cotton/polyester and 1/8″ thick. You can use even thicker rope for macrame, but I liked this width. Cut your string into as many pieces as you would like to use – I used 10 total pieces – of equal length. I made mine about 4 feet long each, which probably wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t want to run out of rope! Fold each piece in half so that you have a loop on one end, as pictured above left.

Loop each piece around your stick as pictured. The first knot I used is the square knot.  You’ll use four strands to create this knot.  Take the strand on the left, and place it over the middle two, and under the right-hand strand.  Simultaneously, take the right hand strand and tuck it under the middle two. Tuck the end of the far-right strand through the loop created by the left-hand strand. Pull the outer strands to tighten the knot. Repeat this step with the same four strands, starting again with the strand on the left. When you tighten again, you’ll see that the strands have formed a square knot: You can connect the strands next to each other by taking the four center pieces of rope and doing another square knot! You can do an alternate version of the square knot by following the same steps as above, but instead of repeating the first step again from the left side, make the second knot from the right side. This creates the little loop seen above.