The Square Knot With Hemp and Paper Beads
There is a renewed interest in hemp, and I had to dig up my book on hemp and bead jewelry. The square knot is the most basic macrame knots. The hemp necklace with paper beads is meant to be worn high up on the neck as a choker. I made this necklace with small round beads and a bigger round bead in the center of the flower.
I have found a site that has good visuals on the basic square knots, you can find it here.
For this project, you need one 2 1/2 yards of hemp (your knotting cords) the size that would fit the hole of your bead, and a shorter one about 24 inches (your filler cord or your middle cord).
With the working cord tie and overhand knot and form a loop that is big enough for your closure knot.
With the filler cord take about 5 inches and fold it forming a loop and hold it against the working cords with the loop.
You take the short end of the filler cord and start wrapping it around all the cords.
You will pull the cords to close the loop on the filler cords until you have one that looks like this.
You will then tape it down to a table so you can start braiding (just like braiding hair) the first 3 inches of the necklace.
You start your square knot ending with the filler cord (shorter cord) in the middle, so that you have two long cords on your left and on your right. You would alternate between the left and the right cords with this pattern: L cord over filler cord and under R cord, take R cord over L cord and under filler cord, then pull tight.
And then, you do the same thing, with the R cord over the filler cord, then take the L cord over the R cord and under the filler cord then pull tight. You will alternate doing this with the left and right cords and you will end up with the square knots.
I added a paper bead every 5 or 6 square knots.
After three paper beads and when you are at the center of your necklace, I added three paper beads on both the right and left strings and in the center I added a tiny paper bead, a large round bead and a tiny paper bead.
And then, you continue and finish the other side, ending with two knots (one knot over the other) as your button closure.
Here’s your finished paper bead necklace!
Paper Beads Hemp Jewelry
I had to see the movie Avatar, just to look at the nature inspired jewelry worn by the characters in the movie. I searched on etsy and true enough, there is a lot of the Avatar movie inspired necklaces that came up and hemp is the stringing material mostly used to give it that organic look. I wanted to practice the macrame technique on hemp before making our own version of the Avatar necklace. Kayla, came up with this macrame necklace with our large round paper beads. I took a step by step photo of her doing it, if you need a more detailed instruction you can find it here.
You take Four Strands of Hemp (small size), the two inner strands (base strands) a little over the length of your necklace or bracelet, and the two outer strands would be five times the length of your inner strands. You would then tie a know to a jump ring and tape it onto a surface. When you are more familiar with the pattern you can just hold the strands in you hand.
Put the right strand over the base strands and under the left strand.
Fold the left strand over the base strands and under the right strand.
Then put the right strand under the base strands and over the left strand, then pull into a knotl.
You get the twisted pattern by repeating the same pattern over and over again. You will then insert your paper bead in the two middle strands.
Just repeat the same knot until you get your desire length. The paper beads are perfect for this because they have big holes enough to accommodate the two strands of hemp.
Here’s your finished necklace
The bracelet was made with one big round paper bead and smaller round paper beads around it. Both necklace and bracelet are finished off with magnetic clasp.
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