Basic Macramé: How to tie a Square Knot

I am a child of the seventies and as a kid I enjoyed doing macramé with my mom and it was also a favorite summer camp activity. First, I am going to go over what you need to know to get your macramé project started. Then the focus of this post will be on how to tie a square knot.

Getting Started with Macramé

There are three things that you need for most macramé projects.

1. Sturdy macramé cord or jute
2. Something to attach your cord to such as a metal ring, wood ring, dowel or stick
3. A way of holding your project in place while you work on it. You can use tape or pins for this.

For this demonstration I am using cord from a kit I purchased from Amazon. The kit comes with 20 m of several different colors of cord. I chose to use a dark green cord and a light green cord so you can tell the difference between the two in the pictures. I also used a key chain that came in the kit. To keep the project in place, I scotch taped the key chain to a scrap of foam core board.

For a basic sequence of square knots, you will need 4 strands of cord that are at least 4 times the length of your finished product size. For example, to make a 6 inch key chain, I would need four cords that were at least 24 inches long. I will be attaching the cord to the ring using a lark’s head knot so I will cut 2 cords that are each 48 inches long. I will fold them each in half so I will have four cords that are each 24 inches long.

The knot typically used to attach your cord to a ring or stick is called a Lark’s head knot. Here’s how to make a Lark’s head knot. The yarn is folded in half and brought through the ring or over the stick and then down. The two ends are brought through the loop formed by the fold in the cord.

How to tie a macramé square knot

When you are tying a macramé square not it is best to tape down the middle or filler cords. For this example there are two cords. I taped mine down with scotch tape but as I mentioned above, you can also use tape. Here is how you tie a square knot.

1. Bring the left hand cord across the two middle cords.
2. Bring the right hand cord over the end of the left hand cord and under the two center cords.
3. Bring the end of the right hand cord up through the loop formed by the left hand cord.
4. Now, the cords are on the opposite side from where they began. Bring the right hand cord across the two middle cords. Bring the left hand cord over the end of the right hand cord and under the two center cords. Bring the end of the left hand cord up through the loop formed by the right hand cord.

If you would like a pdf handout that shows these steps in more detail, it can be downloaded from the Dabster Resource Library. Simply subscribe and you can download any of the resources in the library.

You can see the completed sequences of square knots in the picture below. The top one is made by brining the the light green cord across first. The back is looks like the sequence at the bottom of the picture. When I tied that one, I brought the dark green knot across first.

More Resources on Macramé

To do these macramé projects, I had to refresh my memory and I found these sites and YouTube channels helpful.

• Macramé for Beginners
• Bantiite DIY
• Soulful Notions