Macramé Christmas trees and recycling Aida scrap pieces

I have made two macramé Christmas trees. I am just sorry it didn't occur to me earlier, I would have made more. They are really fun and I love the way they look.

The first one was done on a piece of "Aida" fabric that was actually a patchwork sewn together from small leftover pieces. One mistake I made - if you plan to recycle your Aida pieces, don't follow me there -: I shouldn't have put it in the embroidery hoop. The sewing was very fragile, the edges just overlapped and it came undone at one point - I had to hand-sew it. But I managed to save it eventually.



So, for the macramé. The tree is made upside down. I put in green perle thread (#8) and started to make square knots. After one row, I used two thread of each previous knot to make a new one, thus creating a net-like pattern.







As I was going I made one knot less at the edges. This made the slanted side of the tree. I simply put the threads in a needle and pulled them to the other side. Also, I wanted to secure the macrame to the fabric, so after the fourth row I made a row of cross stitches in red, as decoration on the tree.





Then I continued in the same manner, leaving out knots at the ends, and sewing the threads down once more. I think, in the pictures you can see well how it was done.



And finally, turn it upside down:





The second one is a bigger tree, about 30 cm tall. It was made of green(ish) hemp string. I hang the string on a wooden rod, and made the tree. Unfortunately I didn't make progress photos. The only tricky part was how to do the three "levels". Finally I did this: I left out knots at the ends, just as before, but later used the same threads for knots higher up. That resulted in straigth lines that were cut at the very end. Ta-da! Add some buttons for decoration and here is your Christmas tree. Done in about 30 minutes, too!

Flexible macramé bracelet. Tutorial.

There are all those friendship bracelets, true, they are for the young but I would love to wear one or two as well. The problem is, the concept of the friendship bracelet is that you should not take it off. Also, it would be nice to have a few in different colours and change them according to my mood. But it doesn’t work well if they are knotted on your wrist. So I was wondering if I can make something similar but flexible. I tried to make a few with clasps, but it is difficult to guess the right size. What fits my wrist, is too big for my daughter.

So I came up with the idea of the flexible macramé bracelet. Here is a tutorial, or rather an attempt to a tutorial – it’s my first time, so please, be patient with me. Also, when I started, I wasn’t sure how I would finish it, so at the end some pictures are missing. I photographed one step, didn’t like it, tried another one – and forgot to take a photo of that. Also, as I looked through this post, I can see that I am really bad about placing the photos and the text, the pictures are not aligned etc... please, forgive me, will try and learn how to do it better for next time.:)

Ok, so here it goes. First, what I used:

Black perle thread, black flexible cord, and some embellishments: buttons, a bead and a hanging little butterfly. I used double thread to give it some thickness. Earlier I made one with single thread and it looked lovely, too but you need smaller beads for that.
I cut the flexible cord 60 cm long and the perle 170 cm, and folded them in two. hanged them on a loop – I used a small embroidery hoop’s spring, but you can use anything provided you can slide it off at the end.

Then I put the hoop on the corner of a pillow, this is very comfortable for me. Started to make some simple macramé knots, keeping the flexible cord in the middle.











When I reached a certain length (I didn’t measure, I am so bad at planning, just guessed – but you might want to draw a simple plan for yourself to place the embellishments evenly), I checked which thread would be going across in front for the next knot.

I put a button on that thread (here it was useful to have double thread) and continued knotting. This is how it looks from the front and the back.



















Again, after a certain length I added the bead. This one had three holes, a big one in the middle and two smaller ones on two sides – but I think any bead could do, you can pull all the threads through the hole, or just the middle ones, and tie a knot around the bead with the other threads.


Then some more knots, another button, and some more knots again.

Now, here comes the trouble. On my previous bracelet I tried to weave in all the thread ends, but it wasn’t a huge success, it is difficult to hide so many, there was a bulk in the bracelet. That’s why I thought now I will not hide them, but use them for an accent.
First, I took off the beginning loop using a needle so as not to lose the hole as it was quite small. Then I pulled the flexible cords in the middle through the loop and pulled them taut.


















I secured the middle threads with a pin. And then I knotted the last few knots to cover up this place where the beginning and end meet.














There I was, the bracelet done but lots of threads hanging out of it. So I tied the small butterfly on them and cut the ends, leaving a tassel-like ending. Not a perfect solution, but I kind of like it. Will have to think about finishing it in a better way.




This is how it looks like - a bit tight on my wrist but will be perfect for my daughter.