I’m so excited about my new hanging planters!

Before a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea what macramé was. I learned it’s a 13th-century form of weaving that was popularized in the 70’s and is making its way back into design trends. I saw a couple of macramé projects on my reader, and decided I’d give it a try. During the process, I realized I’d been doing Cavandoli macramé since I was little. Anyone ever make friendship bracelets? It’s basically the same thing! (Also, a fun fact: Wikipedia says macramé may be derived from a Turkish word!)

First, I purchased three small pots from Bauhaus and filled them with little stones for drainage:

I found these cute succulents at a flower shop in Kızılay:

Now for the macramé. Here are the basic steps. (For more detailed instructions, I followed this site and this site.) I used jute, but other people use nylon cord. Any kind of stringy stuff should work. Cut 8 strands, each about 5 feet long.

Knot the pieces together, but leave a couple of inches below your knot. That is the bottom of the planter. Separate the strings into 4 groups of 2 strands each:

Select one group. About half an inch from the big knot, tie the strings as though you were tying your shoe. Then make a second knot and tighten:

Repeat that step with the other 3 groups:

Choose a single strand and repeat the double knots with the adjacent strand from a different group:

Repeat until you have a second layer:

Then repeat to make one more layer. You can make these fancy with different kinds of knots, but I kept it pretty simple because my pots were so small. Once I put the succulents inside of the macramé hangers, I had to make a lot of adjustments to even out the knots.

To hang them, we mounted Command Hooks to the back side of the crown molding. Our crown molding sticks out from the wall about 5″ in front of the windows to make room for the curtain tracks. (No curtain rods here.)

Some leaves broke off of the during transport and planting, so I’m also trying my hand at propagating succulents. We’ll see how that goes!