Macramé Lounge Chair

So I saw this contest for ‘CHAIRS’ and I got excited because a while back, I saw this cool design on a youtube video from TEXSENSE and loved it! Perfect! It was such a beautiful deck chair design and now I had a reason to recreate it! I cannot lie … this was a difficult design. I ripped out as much as I knotted. But I was determined to do it and in the end, I love it! Hope you do too!

FYI... this is a sturdy chair. My husband is 218lbs and it holds him up just fine. He can't get out of it... but it holds him up just fine! 😂

Materials:

1. 5mm Polyester Macrame Cord (Need 370 meters or 405 yards)
2. ( I used 4 Skeins of Makromecity Polyester Macrame Cord 5mm x 104 Yards (311 feet) 5mm Polypropylene Copper Macrame Cord)
3. A folding wooden beach chair frame
4. Scissors
5. Ruler

Knots Used: (See attached pdf file for most of the individual knot descriptions)

1. Lark’s Head Knot (LHK)
2. Square Knot (SK)
3. Diagonal Half Hitch (DHH)
4. Switch Square Knot (SSK)
5. Weave Knot (WEK)
6. Gathering Knot (GK)

Preparation:

1. Cut 36 cords, each 9.29 yards long
2. Take the old fabric off the wooden beach chair frame.
3. Set up a place to hold your work. I used a portable clothing rack and hung the chair frame with 2 ‘S’ hooks across the top rod. This also helped me to ‘control’ the crazy long cords, by looping them and resting them on the corners of the rod (pics 2 & 3). But you could also just try leaning your frame up against a wall if that works.
4. If you find the ends of the poly cord are unraveling while working with them, take a lighter and singe the tip - this will stop it from unraveling.

1. Fold each cord in half and attach each to the top of the chair frame with Larkshead Knots (Make sure you are putting the cords on the correct cross frame of your chair and that it is in the front position. (Video 1 - Larkshead)
2. Now start your square knots across the top chair frame. Do 2 rows of alternating square knots. (Video 2 - Square Knots)
3. For 3^rd row, turn in the outermost cord and then make a square knot. I will call this a half switch knot.
4. Skip 4 cords. Continue square knots across, repeating the pattern on the other site (Video 3_ Starting Diamonds). NOTE: These half switch knots should be done on all far left and right ends of the seat. It gives a good solid border along the edges.
5. 4^th row, 1 alternating square knot, skip 8 cords, then do 5 more alternating square knots, skip 4 cords in the center, then repeat the pattern until you finish the row.
6. Now you are seeing the diamond/leaf pattern start.

1. Create the 1^st ‘leaf’ of the design. Follow the video to see how to do this section. You will do this diagonal half hitch frequently on this design.(Video 5)
2. Now do the diagonal half hitch to create the leaf pattern
3. Repeat on the other side.

1. Now do the center pattern. This is a complicated design, I felt it was much better to show on a video rather than describe. There may be a way to describe Macrame knots in a pattern, but I am not sure how to do that.
2. The first video will show you how to create the elaborate center Medallion design. Watch Video 07 and follow along.
3. The second video continues, explain how to do the border, vines and stems below the Medallion design Watch Video 08.
4. The third video will guide you through the last part of the center Medallion design. Watch Video 09 for instruction.

1. Unfortunately, the video I took on how I did the lower Medallion didn't record :-( Basically, this section is a series of half hitch knots. You can see the image I attached and try to emulate, or simply do whatever you want here.
2. Continue doing alternating switch knots to the end of the chair. See the 2nd pic for a full view of the design. Each chair will be a bit different, so just create the alternating knots across the seat until you feel its time to tie it off to the frame. A little tight is good to allow for stretch.
3. Now tie the chair to the base (Video 09). See the video above on how to tie to the frame.
4. These square knots you will tie to the frame will feel loose. Its ok, the next step locks in the tightness.

1. To lock in the square knots you just tied onto the frame, create some more leaf and vines across the width of the seat bottom fringe section. The tight half hitch knots will secure the square knots you did in the last step. See the first pic for the design I did.
2. At this point, trim off the long cords to the length you want.
3. Add 3 tassles....
4. Gather about 36 18" cords from what you trimmed off.
5. Gather evenly about 12-15 cords and hold in the center. Look for the 2 cords extending from the sections in the design that I pointed green arrows too. You will tie your bundle into these 2 cords - tight.
6. Now you will take a smaller length of cord and wrap it around the top of the gathered bundle (where I have orange arrows pointing) and either tie a few knots to anchor, or better yet, use a gathering knot (show in the attached pdf file "knots.pdf').

1. Now cut 35 cords about 50" long each. Fold in half and insert between every 2 cords in the top bar. See the video above.
2. When all cords are inserted, you will use these cords to do your head fringe piece.
3. Do a series of alternating square knots in any pattern you want. I chose a simple design and only attached one tassel here (green and orange arrows shown on the image).
4. To finish off, I simply tied random double knots along the cords (blue arrows on the image) and trimmed off the rest in a slight 'v' angle.
5. When complete, take a lighter and singe the tip of each cord so it doesn't unravel. Since its polyester, it melts nicely.
6. ENJOY!!