How to make long narrow wall art with combed macramé yarn and embroidery floss.

 How to make long narrow wall art with combed macramé yarn and embroidery floss.

I have a strange fondness for the straight, exact, cut and combed look of macramé, which you can also see in my tutorial for a modern macramé wall hanging. You'll get plenty of it in today's post, as I've created a long, narrow wall art tassel for a narrow wall that has looked empty for far too long. You can use this technique to make different pieces with different widths and lengths.

This is definitely a project to recreate, and I took inspiration for today's piece from artwork I've seen all over Pinterest created by Mexican artists who use a blend of fibres. Part of this blend is cotton and Sansevieria fibres, which are derived from snake plants. This blog post shows how to extract these fibres. However, I didn't want to kill any snake plants and again opted for combed macramé yarn.

Such pieces cost between $1000 and $3000 (e.g. the Lomas wall hanging HERE), and I don't have to tell you that I can't afford it, do I?

Materials needed

Macramé thread (I used THIS 4mm, but you can also use others)

coloured or plain embroidery threads of your choice

(colour numbers I used: 407, 436, 977, 3779, 976, 3826, 402, 922, 21)

sharp scissors

hair clips

fabric stiffener or HERE

polystyrene balls (I used 2.3 inch and 1.8 inch balls)

skewer or drill to poke holes in the foam balls

Comb

Brush (I love THIS brush for this type of project)

Wooden ring (I used a 3.7 inch wooden ring), a dowel rod or a pretty towel rod like THIS, THIS or THIS for example).

Here are the steps to easily unravel and comb macrame yarn:

First, cut a length of the macrame yarn to the desired length for your project.

Locate the end of the yarn, and gently unravel it from the skein or bundle.

Once you have unraveled a section of the yarn, hold it taut with one hand while combing it with a comb in the other hand. This will help to straighten out any kinks or tangles in the yarn and ensure that it is ready to use.

Repeat the combing process with each section of yarn until you have combed the entire length.

Once the yarn is combed, you can use it for your macrame project!

It's important to be gentle when unraveling and combing the yarn, as it can easily become tangled or damaged. With a little patience and care, you can create a beautifully straight and even yarn for your macrame projects.

Start by untangling the ends of the macramé yarn (for the long, narrow wall art tassel I used 12 3.5 m strands of 4 mm macramé yarn, which I untangled).

I like to run my fingers through it quickly to untangle everything, but you have to be careful that the ends don't just curl back up and get tangled again.

This step is not essential, but I find it much easier to brush/comb the yarn when it is long and has been dipped in the fabric stiffener and dried.

When I pull out the skein of yarn, I place my finger firmly on the opening to squeeze the excess liquid out of the stiffener.

I then hang the wet macramé yarn strands over a shower curtain rod and let them dry.

Now it's time to comb the macramé yarn strands.

My favourite way to do this is to use this fur brush.

The combed strands are easy to secure with hair clips, as you can see.

When it's time to hang up the yarn, you'll need to decide if you want to use a wooden ring or some kind of stick, as I mentioned in the materials list above. Simply fold the yarn in half over the ring or pole.

Keep brushing and add all the strands.

Here you can see how thick my bundle of combed macramé yarn ended up being.

I cut another piece of macramé yarn in exactly the same length as the combed yarn strands (I used 8′) and folded it in half.

Then I wrapped it with a lark's head knot as shown.

Now you can slide the piece of macramé yarn under the combed bundle of macramé yarn.

Smooth it all out.

Use a small piece of macramé yarn to tie the bundle together.

Now it's time to add the embroidery thread, which I did using the gathering knot method. Place the yarn in a loop as shown....

...and keep wrapping the embroidery floss tightly around the macramé yarn bundle.

Here you can see the wrapped embroidery floss with the loop at the bottom.

Thread the embroidery floss end through the remaining loop.

Pull the top end of the embroidery floss up so that the bottom loop with the end piece is pulled under the wrapped embroidery floss.

Here you can see the two ends sticking out at the bottom and top.

Cut these pieces as close as possible to the wrapped embroidery floss.

Now add more colours of embroidery floss to your taste in the same way as described above.

AD

INSERTING THE FOAM BALLS INTO THE LONG NARROW WALL ART

When you are finished with your row of coloured embroidery floss, it is time to add a foam ball.

Inserting the foam balls into the long narrow mural and tying them off

Use a skewer or drill to poke a hole large enough to fit two strands of macramé yarn through.

Use the skewer to push the two middle pieces of macramé yarn, which you have previously secured with a lark's head knot, through the foam ball hole under the macramé yarn that is not entangled.

Here you can see how the foam ball is threaded onto the centre piece of macramé yarn.

Slide the foam ball as far as possible over the macramé yarn and under the combed yarn.

Now smooth the yarn over the foam ball from all sides. You may need the help of a comb.

Take another short piece of macramé yarn to anchor the yarn firmly under the foam ball.

Then I wrapped the macramé yarn again with more coloured embroidery floss using the same gathering knot method.

You can add many variations in length and colours.

Here are the measurements for the combination of yarn, foam balls and embroidery floss colours I used for my long, narrow wall art tassel.