This summer
I struggled with a fly-problem: the plants and flowers on the balcony seemed to
attract flies which then decided to take a peek into the bedroom.
As the
window construction is quite old no screen door seemed to fit the measurements
and screen curtains are usually quite ugly and take away a lot of light (I’m
talking about those weird plastic strip curtains preferably sold in orange
tones…).
An idea popped
up in the back of my mind: “what about a macrame curtain? Didn’t you wanted to
try out some macramé anyway? Maybe this is the perfect time and situation”. And
that’s exactly what I ended up doing and I loved to macrame – it was so much
fun and required quite a bit creativity as you need to handle a lot of string,
think about the perfect pattern and find the right spot to do it.
You need:
- Wooden stick a bit longer than you want your curtain to be wide
- Macrame yarn e.g. this one
- Spikes or hookes to hang up the curtain / hold up the wooden stick
1. Start with thinking about the measurements you need: I wanted to make a curtain which was about 60cm wide and 200cm long with a pattern only in the upper quarter of the curtain. Depending on the project you are planning and whether you’re making the knots tighter or looser you need to calculate the needed length.
I wanted to end up with a length of 200cm and thus already knew that each piece of string needed to be at least 400cm (as you fold each string in two) and added an additional 100cm so I ended up with a total length of 500cm.
I had a rough idea what I wanted to the curtain to look like and ended up cutting 12 strings each 500cm (I started off with 10 but felt it was too loose and then added two more strings).
2. There is a pretty simple trick which I applied when cutting string: I measured one piece of string, applied masking tape and cut in the middle of the tape – this way you have tape left on each side. I additionally applied some masking tape to the other end of the string which in this case I didn’t need to cut as I was using a new ball of yarn. This piece of string was my ‘original piece’ and I measured and cut all other pieces against it using a different type of masking tape. I left the tape on the string until the very end when the whole project is done as the tape prevents the string from unraveling.
3. Start wrapping your strings around your wooden stick using the Lark’s Head Knot.
4. About 5cm below add a regular knot tying two neighboring strings together. Continue with regular knots until all strings are tied. Make sure you tie all knot either clockwise or counterclockwise but be consistent in your choice.
5. About 5cm below the regular knot continue with two Square Knots on top of each other – tying one clockwise and the other one counterclockwise.
6. Repeat step 4 until you have 3-4 rows of Square Knots. Every second row the outer strings will just hang loose and will be incorporated into the pattern again with the next row of knots.
7. Finish off your pattern by repeating step 3. Your pattern should take up no more than the first quarter of the curtain as you still want to be able to walk through it.
8. Hang up your curtain using spikes or hooks. Once the curtain is in place give it a nice trim and you’re done!!
I
absolutely loved this project and macrame is a lot easier than I thought! I
looked up a few of the knots on Google or YouTube but if you used to make
charms for your friends in school a lot of these knots will be familiar to you.
And the curtain totally serves its purpose and keeps the big flies out :) If you continue the pattern all the way until the end you can also make a beautiful wall hanging or room divider – just make sure to use enough string.
Happy
tying,