Macrame & Me

Every month, I find a new project to do. There’s been a fun variety to choose from, and it has encouraged me to start expanding my horizons on what I want to do with my free time. While I still aspire to return to sketching more often, these activities find me entering the physical world and trying to create something that will hopefully last as a reminder of my curiosity and ambitions. So far, the easy frontrunner is wood burning, which has produced some fantastic personalized art. However, I had to wonder… what could possibly come next?

In short, I don’t have what I’ll call “surgical hands.” I am not good with small details. Even if I love doing jewelry sculpting, I recognize how clumsy my hands are and that I’ll ultimately just never get to the angle that I want. It’s the great intimidation that I was met with when assigned to tackle the subject of… macrame! In short, macrame is my first real exposure to a craft that involves tying ropes together for the sake of purposeful art. If you look at drawings, I get it. They’re gorgeous and I would love to hang them in a bragadocious corner of the house.

The issue is that I don’t have surgical hands and may be a tad more impatient than I let on. The focus in this project was on planters, which meant at times cutting rope that was over 170 inches long. With a measurement that only goes up to 60 inches, this proved difficult on top of finding any place to sprawl out and give it the proper treatment. I will say that by the time I worked on my second attempt, this stage was much easier to navigate. Even then, there’s no concept of a bigger picture with me. Along with instructions that were sometimes vague or featured lines accidentally unprinted, it proved to be a game of guessing and working around the steps just to make something that I wouldn’t be embarrassed by. 

This was especially true of the handles, which were an ordeal unto themselves. It’s one thing to tie two strings together. However, the way everything is designed found me taking up to eight strings and having to fold them into odd corners. I also had to tie knots that weren’t well-defined in print, and thus I never quite had loops that locked at satisfying points.

I don’t wish to knock the art of macrame nor suggest that this company’s output was faulty. I will confess that they have had only one project that I was completely dissatisfied with because of instructions and intent, but this isn’t it. This feels like a project that is about pushing patience to the forefront. Even if it claimed to be something you could wrap up in 90 minutes, I found myself needing closer to eight or nine. To be honest, it’s the one thing I loved about the project because I do feel like my monthly activities are often in and out in two hours, which doesn’t inspire a lot of time to sit and think about something other than your typical thinkings. 

It allows you to put on movies like The Lobster and American Splendor and take in the dialogue while turning loops around while trying to make them as airtight as possible. I even got the new Just In Time OBCR playing at one point, and I will say that Jonathan Groff is a phenomenal singer. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen two productions of Spring Awakening this year, but I have really come around to calling him great. What’s even more amazing is that despite my animosity towards listening to jukebox musicals – especially ones this direct (Illinoise is the exception) -  I found myself engaged in his presentation. I got the sense that Bobby Darin was something greater than a teenybopper Sinatra Jr. type that you’d get from something like “Somewhere Beyond the Sea.” 

I will say that Darin by way of Groff does wonders in helping you lock in and try to do better on macrame. I tried. I even untangled everything to start over at one point after an hour of going in the wrong direction. I was eager to do something that appeared to be right…

And yet both times, I just couldn’t get there. As sensible as the instructions were for the top of them, it was the interlocking strings beneath that ultimately threw me off both times. Part of this was simply laziness on my part. I didn’t go as methodically through the strings and tied them in a sequential order. If anything, I eyeballed it (poorly) and slowly built the desired inches until I got to the last part… where everything tended to be a little off and made me haphazardly snip the ropes to equidistant without believing that backing up a bit would solve the matter.

I am sure that in time, I could be better at macrame. I see the larger potential. However, I am currently a bit frustrated with this side of the project. A lot of it is less about where it goes and more about how it’s a tedious and sometimes physically demanding project. Having to do repetitive arm motions can exhaust you quickly, and on a hot August afternoon can be miserable. I think by the end of the first night, I was stripped down as far as modestly possible because I was sweating too much. Maybe it’s the heat and an oncoming headache that also hold me back from greater potential. Who knows.

The decision to write this essay came from my opinion that macrame is paradoxical. I get its larger use and I want to exist within the competent side of that equation. However, I don’t have the patience or resources to fully invest in it. I treat it more as a weekend experiment to see if I can get closer to “good” this time around. I still want to suggest my problems are my own and not largely based on the materials I was given. 

Still, this makes me wonder if I’m capable of doing other activities that are more in line with string and design. Could I go further into knitting or crochet, or possibly make something a little less arduous with the remaining macrame rope? In all honesty, I am heartbroken that I have no interest in doing the third project in this set, but I also feel like it would be a waste of rope if I just found myself messing up all over again. I need to take risks that are smaller and more reasonable right now.

Maybe one day I will complete this to the instructions’ liking. But for now, I am going to find something flatter, less basket-holding, and run with that. Maybe it will only take two hours, and I’ll be underwhelmed by the whole endeavor. Who knows. What I do know is that reading Reddit posts about how “easy” macrame is tends to be a little discouraging when you’re doing it wrong. I’ll admit my design has personality… but it also has a very flimsy bottom. My flowers would’ve smashed into the carpet if I hung that up. I need to think more practically. Let’s see how that goes.