Learn how to make your own macrame drink coasters!

1. Intro: Hi, I'm Megan and I'm self-taught. macrame artist. I'm also the owner and creator of my own little business, Luna Crafts Online. So in today's class, we are going to be learning how to make this really pretty macrame coaster. You can use it for your drinks or you can even put your jewellery on top of it. It looks really pretty like that on your bedside table. Or even if you have a little plant in a cachepot, you can put that on top of this coaster to add nice texture. If you make them in a pack of four they make really, really great gifts as well for friends and family. And you can make them in so many different colours. And I'll also be showing you how to make this fun little triangle detail, which adds a really, really nice element to your coaster. I created my small business, Luna Crafts Online back in December 2018. Since then I've fallen more and more in love with macrame and and fibre arts and the process of creating bespoke wall hangings. I find creating something with my hands very therapeutic and relaxing. I'd love to now be able to teach other people about this craft and hopefully inspire others to be creative. My hope is that my lesson will teach you some basic knots and patterns so that you'll be able to create your own wall hanging and plant hangers and even macrame bags. Not only for yourself but for friends and family to as they make really amazing gifts. Some of my other hobbies include yoga, running, baking, and houseplants. I have probably about 60 houseplants. So I have a lot of different macrame plant hanger tutorials to share with you. I really hope you learn some techniques from me so you're able to create your own unique, beautiful wall hangings. 2. Supplies & materials: So you will need some macrame cord. This is a 3 mm 3ply macrame cord and it's my favourite to work with. So you can pick out any different colours for these, or you can just do a white base. like I'm going to do and pick an accent colour for the triangle. So you will need one length of 200 cm. To start off with you'll need five lengths of 100 cm. And that's to make this circle here. And if you want the triangle to start there, you would just do 4 lots of the white and one lot of coloured cord. In the next lesson you'll see, we'll need to add on macrame, cords as we're making this as and when we need it. So I can't give you the exact measurements of how much cord you're going to need for this project. But I will show you in the next lesson how we add on cord as and when we need it. You'll need some scissors and a tape measure. You'll need a comb to comb out the fringe at the end. And now we can begin making our macrame coasters. 3. Making the coaster - cow hitch & double clove hitch knots: So to start off this coaster, I'm taking my 200 cm length cord with the majority in my left hand and a small section in my right hand, I'm just looping the smaller section over the larger section like this and creating this loop. So you can see I'm taking it from the right and I'm just crossing it over in this loop pattern. Then I'm taking one lot of my 100 cm and I'm folding it in half and we're going to be attaching this, doing a cow hitch knot. So I'm just putting in the midway point underneath my cords. And then I'm pulling those two cords through the loop there. So this is called a cow hitch knot, but it's also known as a reverse larks head knot. So I'm just repeating that with my other four cords, attaching them all in the same way. So splitting it in half, put it underneath my cord, and then pulling the two cords through the loop. So once all 5 have been attached. We can go ahead and grab this longer end here, and you can just start to pull on it. And you'll notice that it will close that loop. And it will also bring all the cords round into this nice circular shape. So I'm just going to spend a bit of time tighten all the knots and Tightening that little circle making sure that neat. And now we can just begin, so you can ignore this short part. Now we just need the long cord. So you can see, I'm taking that first cord on the left. And I've got my long cord in my hand. So I'm just taking that first cord up and over the longer working cord, behind And then it's going to come through this loop here. So just pull that to the top. Then we're just going to repeat the same on the exact same cord So it comes up behind and then through that loop. So that is a double clove hitch knot, and that is the only other knot that you will need to complete this coaster. So it's just two knots, nice and easy. Then grab the next cord, making sure longer cord is on top like this. So that cord will come up and over, behind and then though the loop. So just making sure to do that with all the cords repeating it twice on each cord. So as you can see now we're getting to a point where there's a big gap in-between the two. So we need to add in a cord I measure my length up against the cords that are there now so I can determine what length it should be. Just attaching it in the exact same cow hitch knot that we done at the very start. And you'll see it will just blend right in. So obviously with every row your cords will be getting shorter and shorter, so you won't need to cut the cords as long. So just keep measuring them up against the cords that that are there now to determine how long you should cut your next cord. And it's up to you when you determine a gap is too big. Here, I'm adding another one on. Obviously the more rows you do, the bigger the gaps will be in-between the cords. Because you need more cords to fill it up as a gets bigger So like I said, it's entirely up to you as and when You add on a cord, you don't want to try and pull the cords around to fill in the gaps as it will just distort your coaster. As you can see, I just snipped that shorter end off now as we don't really need that. And if you want more security could add a dab of glue to that, but I don't find that it's necessary. So now I'm just going to start adding in my colour now that it's about seven cm wide. So again, I'm determining the length of my colour cord by measuring it against the cords are there now and attaching it in the exact same cow hitch knot. And then I'm just continuing on as normal. So then in order to increase this triangle size every other row, we will need to add a cord. So you can see I've done my second row without adding a coloured cord, but now I need to add another cord. And then just carry on. So every second row with your coloured cord, you will need to add on another cord. So I'm just continuing this whole pattern until it's the size that you would like. I like to make mine about 12 cm wide. I think that's quite good size for a coffee cup. And as you're making this, it's important to make sure you're creating the knots flat because sometimes if you pull them too hard, the coaster tends to curl up and want to turn into a bowl which is great if you want to make a jewellery dish, that is a way that you can make little jewellery dish. If you just angle up the knots a bit so it starts to lift up the sides of the coaster and you can create really pretty little bowls. But for the sake of a coaster, you want it to be as flat as possible. So it's important just to remember. 4. Trimming & combing: Now my coaster is exactly how I would like it to be. It is time to trim out the fringe. So I'm just taking my scissors and I'm going to do a very rough cut first just to get bulky length off. And you can save these little scrap cord pieces because you can make so many things using them. Like macrame feathers, key rings, all sorts. So I'm just gonna go around doing this rough cut. I do find it a lot easier to pick the coasters up, then just cut it on my desk. So now that most of the length is off, we can take our comb and comb it out, this is obviously entirely optional You could just leave the cords as is, but I do love the fluffy texture it creates when you comb out the cord. And then I'm going to go ahead with my scissors and do another trim. So it's up to you how long you want your fringe to be. It's definitely worth turning your coaster over like this and combing it out. So you can see that a few longer bits that were folded underneath that didn't get cut the first time. So now the coaster is how I like it and I am finished. 5. Final thoughts & class project: So I did go ahead and just give it one last final trimmed to make the fringe a bit shorter. But this is my coaster complete. And I really hope you love this class. For the class project, I'd really love you to make your own coasters. You can make them any colour you want or any colour combination you could even add on multiple triangles. I think that would be quite pretty so you can do them at differing rows. So they would come out at different sizes. You could do three different coloured triangles on there. That would look really nice and please share your progress pictures. and the final picture in the class project section below. I'd really, really love to see it. So here's a set I recently made for my friend where you can see I have used the coloured cord right from the get-go from that five lots of a 100 cm the cord, and this is the outcome. So you get a much, much larger triangle but I really love the effect it creates. Really can't wait to see what coasters you make and what sizes you make. And I'll chat to you in the class project section.