(gentle music) - All right, so we're back here with Ashleigh.

And Ashleigh, I have an issue that I was hoping to talk with you about.

So I have plants in my house and I brought one of my plants here.

But another thing I have in my house is cats.

- Hmm.

- I was hoping that we could come up with a clever solution to get this maybe up off the table and away from the prying felines.

- Yes, absolutely.

So I have a perfect solution for you for your hens and chicks.

This is pretty heavy.

- Yeah.

- So when I'm choosing my cord for my macrame plant hanger, since this is pretty heavy, I wanna go with a thicker cord.

So normally what I would use is this three-millimeter cord in my workshops.

I also have a five-millimeter cord.

These are cotton cords.

But for this one, I think what we should probably go with is this thicker jute cord.

- Okay.

- Now, jute is the traditional macrame material.

The fiber, this is what was used primarily in the '70s and the '80s.

It was a very natural fiber.

What we're gonna do is measure out this jute cord.

I like to take my plant hanger and decide how tall it's gonna be, and then multiply that by four.

So I measure this out by using my wingspan, and we will be using four cords in half.

And so that will be a total of eight cords.

- Okay.

So we've got our strings cut and we've got 'em set up on a frame of sorts here.

- Yes.

- So how do we get started?

What's our next operation, I suppose?

- Right, so the first thing we'll do is grab your macrame cords, and stick your thumb through this looped end.

- Okay, so I'm doubled over in this.

- You're doubled over.

- Okay.

- Yep.

And then we're gonna pull them out all the way.

Very good.

And we're gonna put this through and do a cow hitch or referred to as a lark's head.

So you're just gonna put all those looped cords through, pull them into a triangle shape, very good.

And then pull them all through.

(birds chirping) Very good.

So now we're gonna take our, all of our cords, and we're gonna pull them back to find our longer two cords.

You're gonna separate those out and work them to the outside.

So these are gonna be your working cords.

When you're doing a macrame plant hanger, you're gonna have working cords and you're gonna have filler cords.

Your filler cords are shorter because they're not tying any knots.

- [Matt] Okay, and it doesn't matter where they fall.

- [Ashleigh] It doesn't matter where they fall.

- Okay.

- [Ashleigh] As long as you are working cords are on the outside.

- Okay - Perfect.

So this first knot is a half square knot.

The half square knot is that classic number four shape that everyone did when they made a friendship bracelet.

So you'll just pull it through and then pull them tight.

So what you'll do is you'll take the left cord, it will always go on top, and your right, on top of the fillers.

- Okay.

- Very good.

And then your right cord will always go on top of the left, making that number four.

This left side goes on top.

- Ah-huh.

- There you go.

And then your right side goes, it's the leg.

So this is like your belly and this is your leg.

So the leg goes on top.

Yep.

Perfect.

- Okay.

- And then you're just gonna wrap it under and through.

And you if you switch it around during this process, that'll be fine.

It'll just make a straight sennit.

So this first part we're doing this here is a sennit.

And that's just when all of them are together.

And you can see how this one is spiraling.

And that's because you're tying that same knot over and over.

Now, if you were to do the belly on the right side, then it would be a square knot, not a half square knot.

- Okay.

- So switching back and forth, belly, belly, belly, belly.

- So if I were to keep this one towards me all the time, it would drop straight down.

I would always see that side.

It wouldn't spin like this one does.

- Yeah, exactly.

- I gotcha.

(gentle guitar music) - So now that you have your main sennit complete, we're going to create these individual sennits.

- [Matt] Mm-hmm.

- What we'll do is separate them into groups of two.

What you wanna watch out for when you're doing this is you don't want to create a group of two from a cord from this side and a cord from this side.

So try to separate them into cords that are close to one another.

(gentle guitar music continues) Perfect, look at you.

Very precise.

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay.

Yeah!

- [Matt] It's a thing.

- [Ashleigh] All right, so now we're gonna create our connective sennits, which are these right here.

So we're going to be connecting the individual sennits together to create, as you said, the cradle.

So again, you just want to be mindful of which two you're connecting.

You don't wanna necessarily connect this one with this one, since it's the outside and outside- - {Matt] And you just end up with a bunch.

- [Ashleigh] Yeah, it would end up kind of crossed, like this one is.

See how that's kind of crossed there?

- Okay.

- [Ashleigh] And so you don't necessarily want that.

(gentle guitar music ) Perfect.

- Okay.

- All right, so now we're just going to slide your pot in.

There we go.

And if you wanna grab those... And there is your little cradle.

So you've got right there, if you grab that, that's where your last finishing knot is gonna be.

And that's just gonna be the overhand knot.

- Okay.

- So I'm gonna take your pot out.

- Okay.

- And you keep your hands there.

(gentle guitar music continues) (birds chirping) Perfect.

- So we just go.

- Yep.

- [Matt] Put 'em all together at this point.

- Put 'em all together.

And this is your finishing knot.

So you'll just tie them all.

And again, this overhand knot, it's just the most effective and sufficient knot.

And so your cradle just depends on the size of your pot.

So when we put this knot in, we will see if it works for where you want.

And if not, the overhand knot is also something that's very easy to adjust.

(gentle guitar music continues) (gravel crunching) - A hot dang, we made a thing.

- Yeah, you sure did!

And you can trim your fringe, you can open your fringe if you'd like.

You can leave it like that.

You can kind of, I like to comb my, if I'm using jute, I like to comb it out, kind of make it a little bit thicker.

- Awesome.

Thank you so much for showing me all this.

- Yeah .

- This is really, really cool.

- You're so welcome.

- I enjoyed that.

- [Ashleigh] Great job.

(chuckles)