Final Project – Emily Lum

Intention

For my final project, I wanted to explore my textile topic, macrame. My initial interest in macrame stems from the modern designs we see in a lot of home decor today. While I was doing my research into this topic, I found myself appreciating the long history behind this technique, and how accessible it is to learn this skill.

I had originally wanted to create something that was inspired by the nautical history of macrame. But, after going home for Thanksgiving break, I decided to focus my project around the relationships I perceive in my family, with the intention of hanging this somewhere in my childhood home.

Process

I first started this project by figuring out what I would create my wall hanging on. I had decided early on that even if the stick or dowel I hung my project on was not organic, I wanted it to have that look. I was lucky enough to find this stick, and I dried it out in the oven on low heat and then sanded it down.

Because my immediate family consists of four people, I created four distinct sections in this piece, but still wanted parts that tied them together to make this look cohesive. I started by working on the top of the wall hanging, and then working on the different sections. Throughout this process, I enjoyed how the cord and knotting can affect the piece as a whole, and I liked the impact the knots made when used to bring different sections together.

My last step was to burn specific parts of the wall hanging. I wanted to experiment what singeing the cotton cord would look like, and I thought it added an additional layer to this project with the color. This process felt closely related to the theme of my project. While tying knots made it seem final and somewhat crystallized, I think using fire to burn parts of the wall hanging was a good way to permanently alter the material.

Learning

I intended to learn something new within textiles with this project, and I think I achieved that goal. Learning macrame and working on the project at the same time was a bit difficult in the beginning. Due to the fact that I had never created a macrame piece before, there was a lot of experimentation and undoing knots and redoing them to create different patterns. I think if I could do another iteration, I would want to plan out the project before, and try to follow that pattern precisely.

Result

Overall, I like the final result of this project and plan on hanging it in my childhood home over break. I’m happy I was able to learn how to macrame, and look forward to creating more in the future.