Macrame Curtain Tie Back

This project derived from looking through my craft drawer and spotting some goldenrod yellow yarn a friend had given me. Has that ever happened to you? Working on one project and inspiration for another project strikes?

I was pulling out supplies for a paint project, when I saw the yarn and thought the color was perfect for fall. Then I thought it would look great in macramé. My next thought was, it would look cool as a curtain tie back in my room! I love when inspiration strikes this way.

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1. Assemble Materials.

As I mentioned in my intro, I already had this yarn on hand. I also had dowels given to me by the same friend who gave me the yarn. If you are buying all three supplies from scratch, you can spend as low as $10.

I had never done macramé with yarn before, but figured it was worth a try. The last time I did macramé was about four or five years ago, so I fully expected to be rusty.

2. To start a knot, loop yarn and lay on top of dowel.

To the right in the photo, you can see completed knots. The yarn color looks different in this picture than in the materials; the true color is somewhere in between!

3. Fold loop over dowel to create a hole. Then pull yarn strands through the hole.

Repeat steps one and two until you have six knots.

4. Starting from right to left, bring right strands over the adjacent left strand.

For this project I used a six strand braid, but rather than braid individual pieces of yarn I chose to treat each knot as one strand. I did this because yarn is more apt to tangle and I wanted a chunky look, almost like a cable knit sweater.

5. Return to the right side and bring the 2nd strand from right, under the strand to the left.

Return to the left side and bring the second strand from the left over the strand immediately to its right. The take the middle strands and fold the right over the left.

6. Continue the braid pattern following directions in previous step.

You will repeat this pattern until the end of the yarn. Once you get a rhythm going, it is quite easy. One tricky part might be treating one knot as a single strand rather than individual strands.

As I was doing this project, I kept in mind that when starting from the right side, you start by braiding over. When starting from the left side, you start by braiding under.

From the right side you will braid: over, under, over.

From the left side you will braid: under, over, under.

7. Knot ends.

I don’t have a specific trick for this. I just try to tie the loose ends as neatly as possible.

8. Cut loose ends to even lengths.

You can see from my photo that some of my ends are way shorter than others. I cut them to be mostly even. If you have a lot of length left, you may want to leave some intact for extra oomph.

Lessons Learned

I am not a master crafter and I am definitely not a master at macrame. When I do macrame I often have to undo my steps and try again. It takes me some practice.

Whenever I attempt a craft in general, I always make mistakes. What were the mistakes I made this time? The first and most major is that I cut the yarn way too short. On the positive side, I have a cute wall hanging that I can keep or giveaway.

The other thing, and this isn’t exactly a mistake maybe it’s more of an f.y.i is that the yarn might not be strong enough to tie back heavy drapery. It may tie fine, but when the macrame strand is pulled too taut the pattern visibility diminishes.

Pin this for later!

I love these linen curtains. They come in other colors too! I’ve linked them HERE if you want to check them out. Our bedroom is probably one of the most boho feeling out of our house, so that lends well to macramé! In case you like the look of the curtain tie, but don’t feel like investing the time to make one, I’ve linked cute options HERE and HERE.

More Curtains and Tie Backs

Have you tried macramé? Did you love it? Drop me a line in the Comments section below, visit me on Instagram– I love hearing from you! Thanks for reading!