DIY Hanging Macrame Chair
We know you guys loved the macrame net we made in our summer DIYs and hacks video (linked here of course!) so we decided to make another really cool macrame project! This time we’re making this beautiful macrame hanging chair. We got some of our inspo from a blog post by Angie (linked here), but these knots are pretty standard macrame technique! Alright let’s get started.
MATERIALS:
1 ¼ dowel (x3)
⅝ dowel (x2)
½ inch rope (20 feet)
Painters tape
¼ inch macrame cord or polyester rope (200 yards)
TOOLS:
Circular saw OR hand saw
Electric sander OR sand paper
Drill
⅝ drill bit
1 inch wood screws
Scissors
Start by grabbing your 1 ¼ dowels and cutting them into 30 inch pieces. Cut your 5/8th inch dowels into 36 inch pieces. You can use a circular saw or a hand saw to do this.
Next, take two of your 1 ¼ inch dowels and add a long strip of tape down the entire length of the dowel. This will help us keep all of the work we do next in a perfectly straight line. Go ahead and mark off 2 inches and 3 ½ inches in from each end of each of the dowels. On your third 1 ¼ inch dowel, make one 3 ½ inch mark on either end. Once everything is marked, remove the tape and use a 5/8th inch drill bit to drill straight through the dowel at each of the marks mentioned above.
It helps to use table clamps and a scrap piece of wood to drill these holes. Give everything a quick sand.
Take your 1 ¼ inch dowels with the two holes drilled into them and lay them parallel from each other on a flat surface. Grab two of your thinner 5/8th inch dowels and slide them through each of the outside holes of the two thicker dowels. Leave about an inch of the thinner dowel sticking out of the thicker dowels. This will create a large rectangle shape, with your thicker dowels on the shorter side, and the thinner dowels on the longer side!
To secure the area where the thinner dowel goes through the thicker dowel, add a 1 inch mark with some tape on a thinner drill bit. Drill a pilot hole through the thicker dowel into the thinner dowel where they meet, stopping at the one inch mark on the drill bit. Then go ahead and add a 1 inch wood screw in the pilot hole to secure everything in place. Repeat this on all four corners of the frame!
Now that the frame is built, we are going to move on to the macrame! Start by grabbing some ¼ inch rope. You can use macrame rope, but we found some polyester rope that looked just as good and was much cheaper! You’ll need 200 yards of this.
Start by cutting sixteen 26 foot pieces of the rope. Time to hang our frame! Go ahead and hang the frame in any way that you feel is easiest. This is only temporary, as it is easiest to create the macrame while the frame is hanging. We used some of the rope through the top two holes to hang it to a pole.
Start by taking one of your 26 foot rope pieces, fold it in half, fold the looped end around the top dowel, and feed the rest of the rope through the looped end!
STEP ONE
BOX KNOT
Repeat this with all 16 pieces of rope. Time to macrame!
Bring together two of your loops to create a group of four strings. Use the two outer strings to tie a box knot around the two inner strings. To tie a box knot, cross the outer left string over the two middle strings, then bring the right string over the front of the far left string and around the back of the two middle strings. Finish the knot by bringing the end of the string through the hole created between the far left string and the first middle string. Pull tight.
Repeat this same knot, this time bringing the right string over the two middle strings first, essentially creating the same knot with opposite strings.
Create the same knot all the way along this row. This will ensure that the pattern is off-set as we go! Repeat this pattern, using the first ropes in the row and then skipping the first two ropes in the row until you reach the bottom of the chair.
Be sure that as you are knotting, allow each knot to have about a three inch distance between itself and the knot above and below it. This will ensure that you will not run out of rope! Continue until your macrame hangs about 40 inches long. It should hang longer than your bottom bowel, and there should be a lot of extra rope at the bottom of your macrame as well.
In groups of four ropes at a time, knot the un-knotted rope to the bottom dowel. Be sure to smooth out the four ropes before pulling tight to ensure it looks super neat! To create an extra strong knot, split the four strands into groups of two, and tie them in two separate knots. Continue this all the way along the bottom of the chair.
Time to add a little something extra! With the remaining rope at the bottom of the chair, we are going to add a fun macrame fringe!
Skipping the first two ropes, create a row of box knots, leaving the two last ropes out. For the new row of box knots, skip the first four strands and the last four strands. For the next row, skip the first and last six strands. Continue this pattern until you create an upside down triangle shape. Once you know the box knot technique, you can add and skip ropes as much as you’d like to create whatever shape! Trim the remaining rope in a matching pattern!
Time to finish off the chair.
Grab your ½ inch rope and cut one long piece that is 10 ½ ft long. Fold the entire piece in half and create a knot in the center. This is how we’ll hang the chair! String the two ends through the two holes we created in the last dowel we haven’t used yet. Leave about a 13 inch gap in between the knot and the dowel. Tie two knots under the dowel to hold everything in place. Now string the ends through the remaining holes in the dowel at the top of your chair and knot these in place as well. This will leave you with about a 21 inch gap between the two top dowels. Next, cut two ropes that are 3 ½ ft long each. String them through the bottom holes of the dowel and add a knot to hold them in place. As a final step, we are adding one more set of holes in the top dowel, 1 ½ inches in from the existing holes. Lastly, string the rope through these holes and tie a knot to hold it in place. We used a lighter to melt the ends of the rope to prevent it from fraying.
When hanging, either find a super sturdy tree outside, or use a hanging chair kit to hang inside (linked here). Be sure to hang it on a ceiling stud. If you are unsure, get some professional help! We don’t want you guys falling and hurting yourselves!
And that’s it! If you make a hanging chair, be sure to send us a photo on Instagram (@thesorrygirls) using the hashtag #SorryGirlsSquad! Also check out the video below for more!