Another Blast from the Past- Macrame!

When I was a kid, I spent hours making friendship bracelets out of embroidery thread for all my friends.   I didn't like "macrame" because hemp was big and scratchy. (There was only one craft store in town so you either made do with what they had or made your own stuff from scratch.) Well, nowadays with the amazing advent of internet shopping, I discovered that hemp is now made in much smaller/finer sizes in all sorts of amazing colors... and in different textures as well.

This sucker took me about 90 minutes to make. I needed a bit of a refresher on knots, which I got from this tutorial on Rings N Things.  I then modified their instructions a little bit to get the spiral pattern, once I remembered what I was doing.  Just like riding a bicycle!

I guess you can't really tell, but it's two toned (sort of the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate).  I used some turquoise recycled glass beads from Indonesia for contrast, since turquoise and chocolate is a pretty popular color combo around here.

The fun part is that my 11yo son saw it and decided to make his own macrame bracelet.  (His his khaki and olive drab in the basic flat pattern given in the tutorial, no beads, because apparently, "Guys don't do beads, Mom!")   This kept him busy for the better part of an afternoon AND is something else we can do together... which, these days, is definitely a win for mom!

Did you make friendship bracelets or macrame bracelets for your friends when you were a kid?  Are you teaching your kids any of those crafts?  What other things do you do with your kids to keep them busy when you can't just send them outside?

Please visit our Etsy store for all kinds of upcycled accessories and jewelry, handcrafted in Hawaii!