If you’ve been around for a while, you know that there’s a big craft show nearby that me and my friend Cayden like to go to called Make It. It’s actually two combined shows called Make It, and Knit & Stitch It, but it’s a whole lot easier to refer to it as Make It.
We didn’t go last year because the event was changing to a new venue that wasn’t quite built on time, and so it was cancelled. Naturally we were very excited to go this year. We booked our tickets, booked an Encaustic Art workshop with Kazie’s Magical Designs, and we booked a Macrame Bracelet workshop with Riverside Beads. We saved lots of pennies to spend. We were all set.
Then a week before, Cayden had a minor traffic accident and has a badly bruised ankle. He’s fine, but that much walking wouldn’t have been good. We waited a few days to see how quickly he’d heal, but it didn’t look like an option. So we took advantage of Amazon Prime overnight delivery, ordered ourselves some supplies, and we had our own little workshop.
We ended up buying paracord, because it’s something we’ve both wanted to use, but paracord bracelets are made using knotting and braiding, which is essentially what macrame is, so it all counts.
We used a whole bunch of sources online but we mostly used YouTube tutorials from the fantastic Bored Paracord, The Weavers of Eternity, and Everyday Knife Guy. Everyday Knife Guy actually has a three part Intro to Paracord series that we followed.
Lots of really good information. The second video shows some basic knots: snake knot, barrel/noose/sliding knot and a celtic button knot. The third video shows how to make some little fobs. We watched, pausing and restarting, pausing and restarting, whilst watching Project Runway. We have no fashion sense whatsoever, but we love Heidi and Tim.
The first thing we did, which you can probably guess from the horrendous tension, was the Snake Knot.
The second one was a square knot, which was relatively easy for me because I use the same kind of layering in my origami bows.
The third was a version of that knot, but with the direction of knotting changed, which makes it a rounded spiral. Very pretty.
We looked for tutorials for a paracord bracelet and found this one by Bored Paracord.
It was fun to do – and used the button knot which we’d learned with the second video by Everyday Knife Guy. The actual bracelet part is super simple – it’s just a wrap. I didn’t completely cut off the excess of mine (that’s the bit I’m attempting hide with my hand), because I wanted to test it’s quick deploy-ability. It really does just pull apart. And then I got to remake it. Bonus fun!
After that we searched for some actual macrame bracelet tutorials, since that’s what the originally planned workshop was, and we found this one.
It uses a square stitch, not to be confused with a square knot. A simple stitch I’d tried in the past. And the clasp is just a couple of square stitches over both ends.
I made a second one of these using one of the buckles that came in the kit we bought from Amazon…
We looked for more macrame videos and found this one by Sarah G.
She demonstrates in terms of wall hangings, which we didn’t get into but probably will soon, but the knots were interesting to learn. Especially the Right Twisting Half Square Knot – which is what it sounds like. Just half of the square stitch, repeated. Which makes this really awesome spiral.
It was a really good session. We learned lots, and did lots. And I’ve been doing more knotting since. Mostly just repeating stuff, and muttering to myself to remember which steps to take. It’s kinda soothing. I will definitely be doing more of these. I want to try a wall hanging at some point, and I want to try with thinner cord. I’m also working on a long hanging piece that demonstrates all the knots/stitches I’ve learned.
Here’s some of what Cayden made:
Crafted By Colette 