If you’ve seen my recent post Happy Rainbow Clouds, you’ll know I had a request for rainbow crafts. If you haven’t seen that post, you should definitely go check it out! Since I already had a bunch of yarn out, I decided to try my hand at some very beginner macramé. This definitely took time and patience, but I am excited to try more macramé projects in the future!
I used:
12” long dowel rod
Off white twine
Yarn (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, dark purple)
Ruler
Scissors
To start, I figured out how long I wanted my twine to hang down and what shape I wanted. Since I was going for a V look, I decided the middle strand will be 12” and each strand will get shorter by .5” as I went out. I have 7 colors so I wanted 15 strands and this is how I laid out their lengths: 9”,9.5”,10”,10.5”,11”,11.5”,12”, 11.5”,11”,10.5”,10”,9.5”,9”. I did this same thing with my yarn wrapping length going from 1” at the ends to 4” in the middle. I cut these one at a time. So let’s just start left to right.
To make my 9” strand, I cut 5 pieces of twine at 18” each. I folded them in half over the dowel rod and made sure the ends were as even as I could get them. Now comes the tricky part: you’re going to use your yarn to tie this in place. For my 9” strands, I used red yarn. To tie the twine in place, use yarn to make a half knot like in this picture. Make sure it’s tight enough that the twine isn’t flopping around the dowel, but loose enough that you can slide it down the dowel as needed. Once my half square knot was where I wanted it, I wrapped the yarn tightly around the twine. This was tricky because not only did I have to try and hold the dowel, but I had to make sure the twine was held straight and the yarn was pulled taught.
For my reds, I only wanted the yarn to wrap an inch of the twine. Once it was to that point, I cut the yarn about an inch away from my stopping point and carefully tied another half square knot with one piece of twine. When I was sure it was in place and was tight enough to stay, I trimmed off the excess and started the next color!
For ease, here are all of my measurements:
| Color | Twine Length | Yarn Wrap Length |
| Red | 9” | 1” |
| Orange | 9.5” | 1.5” |
| Yellow | 10” | 2” |
| Green | 10.5” | 2.5” |
| Blue | 11” | 3” |
| Purple | 11.5” | 3.5” |
| Dark Purple | 12” | 4” |
For my design, I wanted an odd number of strands so I only used dark purple once. After all the colors were done, I spaced them out evenly. And for the hanging part, I finger crocheted some twine and simply tied it around the rod. This craft took a little patience but I love how it turned out! I can’t wait to try more macramé style projects. As always, if you take any fun pictures of any crafts, tag me on Instagram @SmileMakePeopleWonder and use the hashtag #DandelionSmiles. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on the next exciting idea!
Dandelion Smiles 