Plant Hanger

 Woke up in the RV this morning with the urge to decorate - I'm sure you're aware there isn't much space in here so my options are limited (which I'm pretty sure is one of the main reasons Dave likes camping - he hates when I redecorate!). While sitting at the banquet table/daybed eating my breakfast and looking around for what needs to be fixed up I got the idea to make a plant hanger for this little fake plant that's sitting on the table - just sitting there, and you know my motto...'if it sits still long enough, it's going to get decorated' hahaha! Dave went with me to Walmart to look at my material options - I thought I was going to make it out of white macrame looking cord or rope but D found this roll of jute really cheap and since he wasn't making a fuss about my making the hanger I "let" him pick the jute. When I was done and he came in to look at it he said "aren't you glad I picked that jute out?"...awwwww, cute.

This literally took me a few minutes to make, especially since it's not perfect and I'm ok with that. The knots should be even around the pot and they aren't - but guess what? No one cares, and no one will notice. And if they do? Guess what? I don't care LOL!!! Seriously, it's the camper. And it's fine. Actually it's more than fine - it looks good! I will probably take it down when we are moving,  Sarge and Lucy sit on the bench right next to the table and this hanger might become a swinging weapon once we are traveling...yikes. How bad would I feel!

I measured how long I wanted the hanger to be - there's only room for about 18" - so cut 8 pieces of jute 36" each (double the length you want it to hang). Fold in half and either insert a ring or something to hang it by, or create a loop out of the 8 strands, which is what I did (mostly because I'm in the camper and don't have a ring handy). Following some very simple instructions I found online,  I wrapped a piece of jute around the looped strands to create a knot to hold it in place. I'm just going to copy the instructions, click here for the original source and pictures:

HOW TO TIE A MACRAME WRAPPED KNOT ~

• Place the short cord over your looped cords with the short tail to the left, a loop pointing down, and the long tail to the right.

• Wrap the long tail around the looped cords and the loop of the short cord. Continue wrapping the long tail, pulling tight and leaving the bottom loop of the short cord uncovered.

• When you are happy with the length of your wrapped knot, thread the long tail through the loop at the bottom.

• Pull up on the short tail to tighten the knot and pull it underneath the wraps.

• Clip the tails as close to the knot as possible.

To make the hanger:
Divide the 16 cords into groups of 4;  measure how far down you want the knots to start (somewhere around the top of the planter) and using one group of 4 strands make 2 full square knots. Repeat with the other 3 groups of 4 strands so you'll have a total of 4 groups of 2 full square knots. Then split the original 4 strands in half and make the next set of knots using the 2 right strands of one group and the 2 left strands of another, repeat with all of the strands. That was long enough for my hanger, you can continue making groups of knots if you want yours longer; I cut another short piece of jute and holding all of the free hanger ends together made another wrapped knot that holds the pot in place.

There are lots and lots of instructions on how to do this online - these are very simple and basic knots!

DON'T FORGET - YOU HAVE UNTIL 5 PM EST TO ENTER THE DRAWING FOR A GIFTCARD TO CELEBRATE THE BLOGS 3RD YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! Click here for the "rules".


two years ago: Steve's baked macaroni and cheese...just about the best thing ever!
three years ago: laundry room hanging rack

Macrame Wall Hanging

I wanted to make myself a macrame hanging planter (if my sissy is reading this, I know she has just asked "why?" and rolled her eyes at me ) and spent all-kinds-of-way-too-much time hunting for patterns and figuring what I was going to do - right down to putting a big thing of twisted cotton rope in my Amazon shopping cart...then I realized I didn't want a hanging planter but how 'bout a wall hanging (since I'd now invested-slash-wasted so much time thinking about this!). I couldn't find a pattern that I wanted to make, and by now I was too impatient to order rope or drive to the craft store for supplies - so like impatient thrifty hoarders everywhere I toggled this together using things I had on hand.

Because I have a thing for sticks (!) this pretty branch has been in our garage for a couple years now waiting for me to turn it into a walking stick. (Why did I think this crooked stick was going to work as a walking stick?) I had leftover twine from covering the legs of that table last week (click here for that project), and I found this heavy soft yarn in my stash. Add a couple beads in with my variety of basic macrame knots and this is what I came up with. And I think it's super pretty :)

This only took me a couple hours to make...and I can add or subtract knots if I look at it long enough and want to change it!

Cut 36 pieces of twine or yarn (each 7' long). Fold in half and tie onto the branch using a lark's head knot

because the branch is crooked I set a ruler across the back to try to get the first row of square knots at the same place all the way across, so it would look level (see how some are right up against the branch but others are down a little bit?)

I've never made anything bigger than a dog collar or camera strap using macrame knots, and my repertoire is limited. This sort of became a sampler of different things using square knots and spiral knots (which are just a bunch of half square knots in a row). There's a couple braids in there as well...

                                               

my "helper" after he got the zoomies and ran thru my project ...