 Hi everyone, welcome back at Charlotte from At Charlotte's House. Today I am going to teach you a little bit of macrame. I've taught macrame at a couple of conferences recently and the one thing that people keep telling me is that it is really not as complicated as it looks. So hopefully you will agree. The only supplies that you need from macrame are some sort of a wooden stick. I use a dowel from the hardware store but you could honestly just go into your backyard and find a stick. You're going to need some rope. I like a cotton rope. I think it's a little bit easier to work with. It's a little bit softer on your fingers and it's really not that expensive. The first thing that you're going to do is you need to cut your rope. You want to cut your rope about eight times longer than whatever you want your finished piece to be. You're going to fold your rope in half and then you're going to bring the looped edge over your dowel and then you're going to pass the ends of your rope right through that. The second knot is the most popular because I think you can really play around with it. So you're going to start with your first four strands of rope. I'm going to scoot these over a little bit just so it's easier for you to see. The two middle strands are going to stay exactly where they are. You don't touch those. So you're only using the two outside strands. You're going to take your left hand strand and you're going to make a number four. You see how that has the number four right there? And then I'm going to take my right hand strand. I'm going to go over the tail of my four. I'm going to go behind the middle and then I'm going to take it back out through here. I'm going to do the same thing here just so you can watch it again. My left hand is going to make a four. My right strand is going to go over that tail behind the middle and then back through. So here you're going to make your four. The right hand strand is going to go over the tail behind the middle and then back through. For the second half of the knot, I'm going to do exactly the same thing but totally opposite. So now those two middle strands still stay where they are. But now I'm going to start with my right hand strand. So I'm making a backward four. Notice that the left hand strand goes over the tail and then back behind. And you see how nice that is? It's a nice flat knot. Let's do that again. My right hand strand makes a four, the backwards four. My left hand strand goes over the tail behind the middle and then back through. I'm going to show you how that single knot that you just learned can make the most beautiful pattern and this is why I love macromate. I'm going to do that same knot but I'm now going to keep these two as the middle and I'm going to do these ones as the outside. Do you see how that is beginning to make that beautiful flower pattern? You're going to start with the rope that's farthest to the left and this is going to be your guide. And for this one I actually am going to bring it straight across if I can. So now I'm going to take this next rope and I'm going to go in front and wrap it around and then sort of pull it tight and do the same thing. I'm going to go in front of that rope, wrap it around and then pull it tight. For this knot I have this rope going straight across so that my line will go straight across but if I want to have angles or a V or even a zigzag I would simply alter the way this rope is. My favorite thing about macromate is that now you just get to play around with it. There's no rules, there's no pattern to follow, get inspiration from places like Etsy or Pinterest and you'll begin to see how this basic knot can lend itself to all the different patterns that you're going to find online. I am off to a good start, I'm going to keep playing around with this but I've taught you all you need to know to begin your first amazing macromate piece. Don't forget to leave me a thumbs up, leave me a comment, subscribe, thanks so much for watching, bye everyone! Thanks for watching!