DIY: MACRAME DREAM CATCHER

So this is a bit of a funny DIY cause I didn't really follow any instructions and I just sort of made it up as I went and hoped for the best, so it's going to be a bit tricky to explain!

Basically all you need is;

• A circle to use for the frame (mine was just a 12" metal hoop)
• 10 metres or so of thick rope for the macrame
• A ball of cotton/yarn for the dream catcher

Start off by cutting five separate 2 metre long strands of rope (I got lucky and found a braided one) and loop them over the metal hoop, once they're folded in half that gives you ten 1 metre strands.

Knot each strand right at the top, and then knot them in a (very basic) macrame pattern. My knot terminology isn't exactly up to scratch so I can't even tell you what type of knot I used - but basically you just grab two of the rope strands and knot them together. I definitely left room for improvement with the macrame, it was pretty tricky doing it on a curve!

Next wrap the whole hoop with yarn, go all the way around and made sure you do the gaps between each of the rope strands from the macrame. This was probably the most tedious part of the whole thing, trying to balance the hoop and wrap the yarn around it at the same time was a bit of a juggling act!

Now for the fun part, the dream catcher! This was way easier than I thought it was going to be, I followed these instructions and it was pretty straightforward. You could add some beads in if you wanted some colour, I wanted mine to be neutral so I stuck with just the yarn.

My last finishing touch was to knot the bottom of the macrame in a diagonal pattern, and then I unplaited the ends of the rope to give it that frayed effect! I'll definitely be trying this one a couple more times so I can try out a few different techniques (and get that damn macrame right), but I think it's a pretty versatile project because you can basically create it any size, provided you can find the right size hoop!