Hello Dear Macrameter Friends!

It’s been a good couple of years since I started my journey with macrame and still there are things I haven’t discovered yet. I’ve been eyeing macrame line art for a while now, just didn’t have an idea on what I’d make with this beautiful technique. It’s so simple yet elegant. 

Macrame line art is basically a large wall hanging backdrop that consists of mainly double half hitch knots and creates the outline of a shape. You can knot amazing geometrical shapes, waves, mountains, humans, animals etc. And then with Macraweave you can add these lovely and colorful fluffy cotton cords with which you can add extra texture and make it more exciting.

Then one day I woke up and I knew it. I have already written about how much I love spending time near the lake Balaton in our camper van and what a macrame heaven I created there. So I thought, if I can’t spend any more time near Balaton, because summer is over, Balaton will have to spend time with me in our living room at home. So I decided to make a macrame line art wall hanging from the shape of the Balaton. 

How did I do that? 

First, I had to figure out how big of a backdrop I wanted. I knew that this kind of design won’t look good in small sizes, because you can’t work out the details in such a setup. Also if you are going big, you’ll probably use thicker cords, and frankly you should, it looks great. I decided to get 4 mm cords for this project. For me a 120 cm wide macrame dowel seemed perfect as well. 

Next step was the pattern. For this particular pattern, I didn’t use Macrameter because there was a definite line I had to follow. I recommend using patterns that don’t have a lot of hard and small edges, details. With a 4 mm cord it’s going to be difficult to follow the little details, I’m not saying it’s not possible, just quite hard. 

In my case, the pattern was the silhouette of lake Balaton. I needed to get this image on an approximately 120 cm wide and 30 cm long piece of paper. I’m not very good at drawing so for me it was obvious that I’d have to print this somehow. To print such a large image you need a high quality image, that is at least Full HD resolution. Here you can see my favorite lake and its outline that will be my pattern. 

Now that I have my pattern, I need to print this in large size. But I only have a regular printer at home. No problem! I did exactly what’s recommended in this Youtube video. 

In a nutshell:

1. Download and Install Adobe Reader
2. Open your pattern (saved in a PDF before)
3. Click on the Printer icon
4. Choose Poster at ‘Page Sizing & Handling’
5. Print

Once I’m done with printing, cutting the edges of the papers and taping the pieces together, I’m now ready to attach the pattern on my macrame work station. 

This will be the line leader, I will use this as the line I have to follow when I make my artwork. 

And from here basically I had to follow the line with double half hitch knots. I started from the top and headed left all the way till the end of the left side. Then I went back to the top and headed to the right and knotted till the end on this side. Then I continued on the left again, did the knots all the way till the end of the right side. 

To create the water in the lake I bought this lovely light blue fluffy cotton cord. This feels like touching a cloud, it’s such an amazing material. 

And this is where I got the most excited. Because finally I could start something completely new, something I haven’t tried yet. 

I looked up different macraweave techniques and then finally I decided that for this project the best would be to use the horizontal braid wave that I learnt from this tutorial video. It took me a few evenings to finish the weaving but I’m more than happy with the end result.

I have to admit that I loved making this project, it was such a lovely new discovery, and I can’t wait to do another macraweave project. 

Happy Macraweaving Everyone!