The macrame rope - how to calculate your needs

Since we offer macrame rope at the store, many of you want to try it, but the question of quantity is always the one that makes you hesitate.

In order to help you clarify your needs and properly identify the quantity of rope needed for a given project, I offer you this simple little calculation formula that will no doubt be very useful!

Several factors can influence the amount of rope required. First the choice of the project (wall hanging or plant hanger?), the type of knots used, the tension of the knots (are you the loose and airy type or rather tight and compact?), the quantity of these, and of course, the desired final format, are all factors to consider.

However, we can agree on the principle that the strings needed should measure between 4 and 6 times the length of the finished product.

So the information you need to calculate the amount of rope required is:

• The final projected (or desired!) length of the finished product
• The number of strings to use

Take for example, the wall hanging above.

• At its longest, the tapestry measures 45 cm.
• It is made up of 11 strings (folded in 2 to make 22).
• The knots that make it up are rather loose so it will require less rope, so we can assume that 4 times its length would be enough.

For the calculation:

45 cm (the final length) X 4 (for 4 times the length) = 180 cm or 1.8 m
1.8 m X 11 (the number of ropes required) = 19.8 m

20 meters of rope would therefore be enough to make a mural like this!

If I had wanted to make it tighter, with more knots, I would probably have wanted to calculate 5 X the length to have more rope. So my calculation would have looked like:

45 cm (the final length) X 5 = 225 cm or 2.25 m
2.25 m X 11 (the number of ropes required) = 24.75 m

So! All you have to do is experiment!

Now that the 100% cotton macrame rope is available online, you can try it! But it's not just this rope that you can use to have fun with knots. Do not hesitate to vary your pleasures. For example, why not try Bacaisse to make a plant stand like this ? Or, the Fluffy, to make a wall hanging soft as a cloud?