You might know that I caught the macrame bug last summer. There is just something so magical about transforming a simple piece of rope! Once I figured out the basics, I wanted to be able to create some more original designs as well. Here are my posts on macrame plant hangers:

• beginner’s plant hanger with simple knots
• plant hangers with square knots, wave knots, and beads
• adding accents with colors

Even with my love of plants and hanging planters, I was running low on things to make with rope, so I was very excited to see this I discovered macrame pendant lights. I first caught sight of Windy Chien’s Helix light in the Apartment 34’s One Room Challenge:

And then, I began spotting it everywhere, like in this beautiful bedroom from Katie Monkhouse:

Mandi Gruber (my idol!) also has a funky version of this simple and gorgeous idea, as does Holly Wade on Curbly.

I was looking for bedside lamps for our guest room and teen’s room, and I knew that I just had to try my own version of these lights!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Plug-in light kit, with a cord color that coordinates with your rope: Here’s one with a white cord and one with a black cord. I used one that is black with a metallic light socket
• Macrame rope: such as cotton clothesline, or check out the gorgeous options from Bobbiny or Modern Macrame. I tried two types of rope:
• • 5mm diameter Bobbiny cotton rope. I used about 200′ of 5mm rope for at 15′ light kit.
• • 9mm diameter Bobbiny rope. I used 150′ of this for a 15′ light kit.

• Light bulb: looks great with an LED Edison bulb or G40 frosted LED bulb
• For the hanger, I used my favorite Ikea Ekby Valter brackets (I’ve used them as plant hangers, as well as, as intended, shelf brackets). I stained the unfinished brackets with walnut stain. The 9mm rope light is hanging from the larger size bracket, and the 5mm rope light is hanging from the smaller bracket.

Here’s how to do it:

• Test your light kit! It’s probably fine, but you’ll be spending several hours on it, so you want to make sure you didn’t get a lemon
• find the midpoint of your rope and lay it behind your cord, next to the light fixture. With the two long ends of rope, start tying a wave knot
• Tips: it can get unwieldy working with so much rope. I used a kitchen scale to help me divide the rope in half. I also used rubber bands to hold together the balls of rope, so they would not unravel.

• Keep going
• (Turn on a movie or podcast)
• Keep going
• When you get to the switch, neatly line the rope along the sides of the switch and then resume your wave knot
• When you’ve almost reached the plug, use a gathering knot to finish off the ends

Here are some pictures of the hanging lights – the navy cord was made with 5mm cord and the denim cord with 9mm rope.

I don’t know about you, but I want to make another one (or ten) soon.

Happy knotting!

Julie aka “Jewels”