For those oF us who remember the late 1960s and early ’70s,
macramé brings Flashbacks oF tragic pot plant hangers and
ugly wall-hangings, including Fuzzy owls! thankFully that
has all changed, and macramé has emerged in the
21st century with beautiFul new Fibres and accessories,
including exquisitely dyed hemp yarns and Fine nylon threads.
DefineD as a form of decorative knotting,
macramé has been used for centuries, with
carvings of the assyrians and babylonians
depicting the use of knots for decorations, and
from around 1200ad the arabs began to use
an early form of the western macramé we still
use today. macramé knotting was also used by
the chinese, the egyptians and the peruvians.
in the 1400s the term ‘macramé’ was used
in the arabic culture to mean ‘a shawl that
protects the head’ while in turkish it means the
knotted fringe on towels and linen. it is derived
from the early practice of knotting a fringe
to a solid fabric in a continuation of knotted
patterns, and also evolved into entire pieces
of knotted fabrics being created.
two other forms of macramé are chinese
macramé and cavandoli macramé. in
chinese macramé there are more than
12 basic knots, and the pieces are always
symmetrical and double sided. cavandoli
macramé is characterised by geometric
patterns and free-form patterns such as
weaving. these two types of macramé will
be discussed in a later issue.
sailors have always been known for
their skills in tying knots, and they are also
attributed with spreading macramé across
the world. their many hours at sea gaveMacramé:
Knot a problem!
Feature
48 creative Beading