What the knots hang from: dowels, branches and driftwood
The top bar decides the character of a wall hanging before a single knot is tied. A milled wooden dowel gives a straight, quiet edge that flatters geometric work and repeated rows. A found shape does the opposite and becomes part of the design. The weathered driftwood bar brings a pale, water-worn surface with bends nobody planned, and the natural tree branch puts bark and taper into the piece, which is why so many leaf and feather designs start there. Choose a bar a few inches longer than the finished width, so the outer cords have room to fan.
Bead holes, cord thickness and how much to cut
Beads are sized by their hole, not by their outside diameter, and that is where most orders go wrong. A bead drilled for 3 mm cord will not take a doubled strand of 5 mm, so check the hole against the cord you are actually knotting with, and against whether it passes once or twice. Large-hole beads accept several strands together, which is what a gathered fringe or the waist of a plant hanger needs. On quantity, the rule makers fall back on is four to six times the finished length per cord, and more when the pattern is dense with square knots. Weights from 1 mm to 5 mm cover nearly every project: fine for detail and small motifs, thick for hangings that need body. Our cotton macramé cord holds those weights, and the beads listed by cord size take the guesswork out of pairing them.