How to Tie a Macrame Square Knot

Hang your dowel between two S-hooks at a comfortable height - eye level when you are seated works well. Cut your macrame cords to length and fold each one in half. To attach a cord, lay the folded loop behind the dowel, fold it forward over the top, and pull both tails through the loop. That is a lark's head knot, and it is how every cord gets mounted before you start knotting.

For practicing the square knot you only need 4 mounted cords (2 lark's heads), which gives you 8 working strands. More cords just means wider rows of knots later.

Group 4 strands together. The two on the outside are your working cords - those are the ones that will wrap and tie. The two in the middle are your filler cords - those stay still through the whole knot and act like a spine that the working cords wrap around.

This is the part beginners usually skip past, and it is the part that makes everything else click. The working cords do all the moving. The filler cords just sit there and get wrapped. Knowing which is which means you will never lose your place mid-knot.

Take your left working cord and lay it across the top of the two filler cords, heading to the right. It should now be sitting over the fillers and pointing toward your right hand. Leave the fillers hanging straight down underneath - do not move them.

You should see a shape that looks like the number 4 laid on its side, with the left cord crossing the fillers and creating a small open loop on the left side.

Pick up the right working cord. Pass it behind the two filler cords (so it goes under), and then bring the tail up through the loop you made on the left side in the previous step.

Both working cords have now traded places. The original left cord is on the right, and the original right cord is on the left. The fillers in the middle have not moved at all.

Hold the filler cords steady with one hand and gently pull both working cords outward with the other. Slide the knot up toward the dowel (or up against the previous knot if you are building a chain). The knot should sit snug but not strangled - cotton cord wants a bit of give so it can sit flat.

What you just tied is a half square knot. If you only ever tie this same direction over and over, you will get a beautiful spiral. Stop here and the row twists. To get a flat square knot, you need to mirror the next half.

Now you flip the motion. Take the right working cord and lay it OVER the fillers, heading left. Take the left working cord behind the fillers, then up through the loop on the right side.

This is the same shape you made in Steps 3 and 4, just mirrored. Pull both working cords tight and slide the knot up to meet the first half. That mirroring is what cancels out the spiral and makes the knot lay flat. Now you have a full square knot.

Tie another square knot directly under the first one using the same 4 cords. Then another. Then another. A column of stacked square knots is called a sennit, and it is the most common building block in macrame. Plant hanger arms, wall hanging columns, and keychain bodies are all just sennits of varying length.

Once you can stack 4 to 8 square knots without losing track of which side is which, you can move on to alternating square knots across rows. That is how the diamond and net patterns get built. When the project is finished, comb out the unknotted ends with a macrame comb to fringe them.