 Hey guys welcome back to my channel so this video we are gonna be working with some rope and I'm gonna be teaching you some macrame knot basics, macrame basic knots, the basic macrame knots, macrame, macrame. There are so so many different macrame knots out there. There's basic, there's vintage, there's Chinese, there's like the 70s macrame and there's modern macrame and there's so many different styles. It's, you get pretty confusing especially if you're not using a book you're just kind of like looking at patterns and looking at how to do the knots. Online and everything, then you're following diagrams. There's not very many tutorials out there. So I thought I'd make a video showing you some of the basics to where you can just see it all in one video and learn them all that way when you see a pattern you like. You're like yes I want to make that. You know what kind of knots are in that pattern already and you don't have to Google how to do it. You just already know. You already know. Ignore the junk in the background. I've got two fish tank boxes and a cabinet that was ruined by her came last last year. We just didn't get rid of it. Y'all know what I'm able to junk cabinet is everybody's got one. Okay so the very first and most important macrame knot is called the Lark's Head knot and that's what we're going to be doing. So go get your rope string whatever I'm going to show you how to do it. Rad it. This knot is the most important one as it is going to be the knot that secures itself onto your driftwood, your dowel rod, whatever that you're placing your project onto. Now what you do, you take one into your rope. You're like okay there's that in and you go down and get your other one. You fold rope in half pretty much then you just slide it down and you get your little loop at the end right here. Now that you've got a little loop right here what you're going to do is you're going to take your driftwood whatever you've got. I'm using driftwood so that's just what I'm going to be saying. This is the front of the piece so I'm going to fold it over like this. It's not a knot yet but it will be. Now you're going to take the working rope or yarn string and you're just going to feed it through that little loop there and pull it through. We've got a little blurry and then pull it to the top. And now you have completed the lark's head knot. It's so simple. The most absolute basic knot but the most necessary. This next knot that we're going to be talking about is called a square knot. It is one of the most common knots used and it's really really simple as well. It's a very beginner friendly knot and the cool thing about this knot is that you can do different patterns with it. You can do a V shape and you can do an alternating V shape and you can just make so many different patterns with it to where it makes the whole piece look completely different. So for square knots you're going to need four working ropes. Now there are two different types of square knots. There is a rat square knot and a left square knot and all that means is that you either start with a rat rope first or the left rope first depending on whichever one you want to do. They're both the correct way of doing a square knot. It doesn't matter which one you like to do whichever one you want to do. I'll show you how to do both of them just in case one way feels more comfortable to you. So to begin you've got your four ropes right here and you're going to take the rat rope and what I like to do leave the left side over here. Don't touch it yet. Well, let me touch it but you know what I mean. Don't be working with it yet. So you're going to start with a rat and you're going to kind of make a little loop with it. And what I like to do is I take the two in the center and I stick my thumb on top of that to kind of hold it in place so that it doesn't move around and I can freely do this one. And manipulate it to where this little loop doesn't disappear. Make sure that the left side goes on top of this rope. So over it like this and it kind of falls into this little area and you just push it behind and go through this little loop right here. So it would look like this once you've done that and then you just pull it up to the top. Now you're going to do the same exact thing except starting with a rope that's on the left side. So we're going to make that little loop. Put your finger on it like that. Make sure this is on top of this right here. Go underneath. Through this little loop and pull it to the top. And that is called the rat square knot and you can tell the difference because the little loop is on the rat side and it's not on the left. So I'm just going to go ahead and show you how to do the left and you can determine the difference and maybe you know figure it out if that's a little bit more comfortable to you. Whichever way works, whichever way works. So for this one instead of starting with the rat side we're just going to start with the left. So do that same thing. Make a little loop. Hold it. Go right here. Go underneath. Through this little loop. And now go to the rat side. Hold it underneath through the loop. And now that you can see the little loop is on the left side. So that's just the only difference. No big deal. But one of them could be more comfortable to you depending on if you're right or left handed or if you just feel more comfortable. This next knot that I'm going to be showing you is technically called a half knot and then you kind of repeat the half knot over and over again. Which will give you a spiral stitch. This is another knot that it's going to require four different ropes. And literally this is all that you're going to do. It's one of the most simple knots but very widely used and you can see it in a lot of pieces. If you google you know mac or my projects or anything. So remember earlier how we started by doing this little loop and holding it. Go and under and through a little loop. I'm pulling to the top. Oh there you did it. All it is is literally half of a square knot. So now that we've done that and with a square knot you would go ahead and alternate the sides that you used. But nope we're not going to do that. Forget that. We're going to keep going with whatever rope is on the right side. So over and over again doing that same process. And again. And again. Now you can see the pieces started to spin and it is super super simple but so beautiful and you can implement it so many different ways into your pieces. Definitely an essential knot. Very last knot that I'm going to show you is a little bit more on the intermediate side. It's a little bit difficult to get especially if you're not used to mac or my. I use it in all my pieces. If you've seen my other videos you've seen me use it. And it's a little bit harder to describe and kind of show you just because the way that the knots kind of overlap with your fingers. It looks a little bit harder but I'm going to try to take it slow and show you how to do it. This one is the one that we're going to be doing. It's the one that creates these lines at the top of projects throughout the project. That sort of thing. And we were showing you how to like roll the rope. It looks like a roll on top of it. I don't know that's just what I think. It looks like a roll. But for this one I'm going to be using all these ropes right here and we're actually going to be connecting it here. I'm going to go ahead and show you how to do that. We're going to be starting with the far right side of this piece. And so therefore we are going to be going to the left. We are going to be working this rope to the left. So because obviously we can't work it to the right because there ain't no rope over. So start this row. What you're going to do is you're going to take the rope that's on the very far right side. And this is going to be I'm going to call it the driftwood because now you've made this rope because I'm going to be making this rope the rope that all these other ropes attach to. So this one is going to serve no other purpose except for being pretty much a stick that you're going to be attaching these ropes to. One of the main things to remember is just to kind of keep this straight or kind of keep this rope in whatever angle that you're wanting to do. So if you're wanting to make a V for instance, keep your rope like this. If you're wanting to make a straight line, kind of keep your rope like this. And that will really help kind of keep the direction of the rope going in the same way that you want it to be. To start out with you're going to be taking the rope directly beside this one. And you can kind of see like this little loop area that this makes once you kind of put them together. And what you're going to do is you're going to fold the rope over it and go through that little loop. I'm going to show you again. So you can see we've got this rope going in this direction. And you've made like a little loop and you're folding it under and over and through this loop right here. And pulling that to the top. Now that is called a half hitch. So what you're going to do is you're going to pull it up and I like to just stick my film on it just like that. And so now you've got this little loop right here that you see. You're going to take the rope, fold it over and through. So I'm just going to try to do it without my, there we go. Fold it over. You can see we've looped it and now you pull that through. And then before I completely seal it off, I want you to see we've got one, we've got a little loop right here. We'll have a loop here and a rope in the center. But if you've done this and you get lost on how many times you've wrapped the rope around, you can always see that, okay, well, I've got one rope here, one in the center and one rope to the side of it. You're done with that one. Move along. So now you move on to the next rope, which everyone was beside that rope, pick that one up. And see we're underneath this rope and you do the same exact thing. So you go underneath and over and through that little area right there and pull it around. Same thing right here, pull it up, hold your finger on it. We're going to go through this loop. So we're going to go over and through just like that. Pull it tight and you just keep repeating that process until you're in the middle. Okay, so now this side has been done already and this side we just finished. So now you're left with these two strings. So now you're left with the driftwood from both sides. And what I like to do is I just kind of see which everyone's already overlapping. So this one's underneath, this one's on top. So I'm going to use this one underneath and attach it to this rope, just like we've been doing the other ones. So go over and through the little loop. Pull it up. Make the loop. Make the loop. I kind of reach in and get it like that and pull it tight. That not specifically took me so many tries to get it right, especially once I would get it going right one way and then I would switch to the right side and it would like completely confuse me because you're wrapping it in a different way. Just try to be patient with it because this is a very, very beautiful craft. And once you get the hang of it and once you start learning it, it becomes so simple and you're just like, it is a very time consuming hobby but it is really worth it. And it's a whole lot of fun and I would love to make some more videos. So if you do want to see some more, maybe some more intricate, rather than just the basics, these are just the couple basic knots that I know that I use in my projects and I kind of wanted to make a video to wear an every single video that I'm doing. I don't have to go in complete depth like this video and do every single knot that I'm talking about that way. I can kind of refer you to one video so you can learn the knots and then come back to the tutorial and kind of learn it that way. Doesn't mean I'm not going to show you how to do the knot in the video. This was more in depth and I just kind of tried to take my time with it. Don't judge mechermay by these knots if you don't really know what mechermay is because there are some beautiful knots out there and you can make some beautiful, beautiful pieces. So if you like this video, give me a big thumbs up and subscribe and thank you just so much for watching. I know I've been in my A for a little minute for a little minute but I was feeling it today and decided my video so I did. So it's really, really hard outside. It's probably why I'm not being myself right now. I'm not as myself. I'm sweating to death and I need some water. I'll be honest. I'll need some water. Anyways, thank you so much for watching. I hope you liked the video and I just hope that you all have a great day and God bless.