WHAT DO YOU NEED TO MAKE A MACRAME

This blog is written for you if you would like to start your adventure with macrame or if you are making the first steps in making macrame projects. It is true that one does not need any tools in order to make macrame, but they are necessary in preparations for braiding and finalizing your work.

Before starting your expirience with macrame, you should know that it will require a bit of creativity, imagination, persistence, quite a lot of patience and at least the capability of making one basic knot. It is promissing, isn't it?

You can look for inspirations on various social media (like Pintrest, Instagram or Youtube), but the final effect of your work will only depend on your creativity and your choice of material.

The simpliest set forstarting to work on your first macrame project can be a wooden stick,scissors and a cord. However, I can easily imagine that when your skills and appetite for making macrame will increase, you may need a few tools, that will allow you to create more complex and precise projects, and which will make hours of work pleasant. In this case I suggest that you equip yourself with a few basic tools:

• Sharp, big SCISSORS are necessary for adjusting the length of the macrame.
• Good, sharp RICHELIEU EMBROIDERY SCISSORS are useful for cutting and hiding ends of cords. You can find them under various ornithological names like heron, pelican or stork.
• MEASURING TAPE is crucial to get the required length of strings. It is much more efficient than a ruller. Of course once you measure carefully the needed length of the first rope with the measuring tape you can use it as a model to cut following ropes. It will help you to avoid mistakes leading to big differences in the length of the ropes.
• WOODEN DOWEL RODS or wooden profiles, will serve you as a support. You can buy them in a superkarket, on Etsy or even find one yourself at in a park or at the seaside. You will need them for creating hanging macrame (wall hanging).
  Some of the wooden dowel found in the wood can be directly used in your projects. Others will need to be stripped of the bark with a knife, wiped with sandpaper and cut.
  The pieces of wood cast by the sea are often in themselves works of art - smoothed by water, bleached by salt and sun, at the same time well preserved. It is the best material to work with!
  In reality you do not need to limit yourself to wood. You can work iwth variety of materials starting from the copper pipes via antlers up to wooden kitchen spoon - all materials which will not break under the weight of the cord.
• COMB or BRUSH, is useful for brushing macrame projects made from a macrame string (they are used for brushing feathers and leafs). I heard good opinion about brushes for cats. Personally I am using a wire brush. It works perfectly.
• a Mulig clothes rack (by IKEA) is perfect for mounting macrame projects. It is not expensive and it allows to make both small and large macrame projects.
• DECORATIONS like wooden beads, feathers or others will make your project more attractive. For example the wooden natural beards with a big hole inside are very lovely decoration in plant hangers.
• WOODEN or METAL CIRCLES with various diameters, which can be used as handles for handbags, flower/plant hangers, or for making dreamcatchers
• CROCHET HOOK allows pulling the rope in tight, difficult places (I am using those from Tulip - they are available in my shop),
• CLEAR NAIL VARNISH might be useful if you wish to protect the ends of the braided cord.

I hope that I have given you quite a lot of indications, but if something is still unclear you can always join me in the KABATANI group on FB and ask additional questions or send me an e-mail.