I have tons of beads in my stash already, so all I needed was the right cord. I bought several colors of hemp and bamboo cord and also C-Lon Tex 400 cord. It comes in a bunch of gorgeous colors. Rather than burn the ends of cut cords to prevent fraying (I fear setting fire to my hard work), I bought some Dritz Fray Check Seam Sealant from Amazon for $5. I debated buying a dedicated macrame board, but decided to just repurpose one of the blocking mats I had purchased a few months ago when I made my son an afghan. The pins go in easily and, as an added bonus, the notched sides that are meant for connecting the squares into a bigger blocking mat are great for holding cords out of the way.
Supplies
My first project is the Casual Diamonds bracelet from Knot Gypsy Designs. It was labeled as good for beginners and came with some instructions on how to do the basic macrame knots.
The larks head knot was pretty straight-forward for me, but the double half hitch gave me some trouble at first. I think I was expecting the first half hitch to be, well, more knot like. It seemed to look like I was just looping the cord. With a little more practice, I began to see how to cross the cord through the loop and my double half-hitches began looking more like the picture.
This particular pattern calls for size 11 seed beads as well as two colors of size 6 beads. I ran into a couple of hiccups here, but easily solved. The C-Lon cord I was using was just a teeny bit too big for most of my size 11 beads. Fortunately, Toho makes a size 11 bead with a slightly bigger hole-- the Takumi. I dug out a tube of these from my stash and it was a perfect fit..... until the cord started to fray a bit at the end. For awhile I kept snipping the end of the cord to get an unfrayed end, but this is, for obvious reasons, not a long-term solution. I unscrewed the cap from my Fray Check and dipped in the ends of the cords. Once it dries (about 30 minutes, but I just set it aside overnight), no more fraying!
It's coming together!
The bracelet design calls for a button clasp. I love buttons. To me, they are like tiny works of art, a surprise pop of whimsy if you will. Anyway, because I was kind of cobbling together the colors of cord and beads I wanted to use, I didn't actually have a particular button that matched. Time to shop! It's the middle of January, but I am feeling summer right now. The blue and green beads in the design are reminding me of my Hawaiian weekend a couple of months ago. The coral cord feels beachy, casual, walking through the sand in bare feet, a sarong, a macrame bracelet on your wrist... you get the idea. I love Czech glass buttons, but this bracelet seemed to be calling for a shell button. I have some mother-of-pearl buttons, but that wasn't quite right. What I found was...
Buttons!
Beautiful, right? They are made of coconut shell, I think. Anyway, I bought one in every color offered.
Now, I should know better to have found the button before I started so I could properly size the loop at the top as the instructions suggest. My beautiful shell buttons will have to wait for another project (which I think I already have in mind) because they are too big. Never fear, I found these other buttons that look like sea glass, that fit just as well with the beach vibe and, importantly, fit through the loop.
More buttons!
And now my first macrame project is complete!
Ta-da!
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