I had the idea that a macrame hanging would provide some privacy on our balcony.  So I found some fancy cord at the hardware store and bought four skeins for about twenty dollars.  I paired that with some green garden twine and my boyfriend helped me measure and cut them into twelve foot lengths.  Our floor was littered with twine this morning. Usually you cut the lengths four times what you want the hanging to be but I never seem to have enough.  Twine is expensive.  

    I put the rope on a slim piece of bamboo we had in the backyard and started knotting.   I threw in a few 'glow in the dark' beads too.  Macrame has always been an honored craft on ships and I've made many macrame purses, belts and plant hangers.  I even knew a fellow in college who got his Masters in macrame.  Carl Kashida.  His macrame wasn't anything like what I show here as he incorporated skulls, bones and hand built clay pots and beads.  He did sculpture.  I did a senior class independent study course in macrame in college too.  I took lots of shocking pink yard and wild day glo pink feathers and created a massive hanging.  I passed.

    So here are the two knots.  Square Knot first....

                    Under                                                          Under

                         Over                                          and Through

             That is the first half of a square knot and the bottom part is just    the opposite.  You get so you chant the words as you do the knots. 

                          Over                                                   Over

                           Under                                      and Through

             What a pretty little square knot.  The trick is to pull it up just right and for that you have to just have the feel for the space between the knots.  Ahh the zen of empty spaces.   Jiggle the knot into place.                                                

     Here is the only other knot you need to know for macrame... The Half Hitch.  It is amazing what creative things you can do with just the two.

     One strand will be the lead and you have to watch that you might lose it as it will get shorter than the others.  You can always add a knot and hide it in the piece to extend the strand.   These knots can make some interesting lines in your piece.

        Loop around the lead and through   Loop again, through and pull

Old Hippie Ladies have some nice skills that can make living with them lots of fun.  Our little place here is filling up with Art work like all my other houses in the last 64 years have.  The Baby Boomers may be getting sick and need a little help but we have had quite an interesting life and deserve a little kindness.  The peace and love generation is alive and well and doing their thing while the world turns. I'm glad I am at the beginning of the Baby Boomer bulge as in the next five years we are going to be weighing heavily on the system. We don't need to quit caring for our elders just because there are so many of them.  We all just need to live a little more simply and that is not a bad thing.

     I'm sure you can figure out how to hang a wavy stick from the desert into your knots.  Just jiggle.  And a little rainbow row of glow in the dark beads finish it off.  The very last thing for a hanging is to cut and unravel the strands that are left hanging.  That makes a nice fringe.  Did you know Hippies were originally called 'Fringies' because they were people who hung out on the fringes of Universities without being enrolled. They were the transition from Beatniks and they were hip so that term 'hippie' was used as more of them appeared.   I was a good hippie girl.  I think we loved macrame because it feels so mellow to hang around and knot.  

 Twine was much less expensive in those days and I wish I had more in this piece so it would be longer.  Four times the length of the hanging is lots of twine.  Sometimes you have to roll them into balls so they don't get all tangled. I wonder sometimes how my life got all tangled up from those simple Hippie Days.  We thought we had it all figured out.  Love, peace and no more war.  Maybe it isn't too late.