Shower Ring Marcrame Gnome Santa

 

It seems wrong to call this "macrame", since you really are just tying 10  knots.   Or, more accurately, one knot, 10 times.  But that's what Pinterest appears to be calling this project, so who am I to contradict?  :-)

It's a quick and simple project.  The hat is the most time consuming part, and even that doesn't take long!

Materials Needed:

• Dollar Tree Mop Head (or other cord. These mop heads are really great for this though - the perfect texture!)
• Shower curtain ring 
• wooden bead (Others have found these at the dollar tree, our store never has them.  I had these in my craft stash)
• half a sheet of red felt 
• Hot glue
• Thread (I used black embroidery floss)

First, cut 10 strings off the mop.

Tie the strings on using the Larks Head Knot.

The Larks Head Knot, also known as the Cow Hitch Knot is a basic Macrame knot that is used to attach your work to a dowel, ring, or other cords and is super easy to learn

Fold the cord in half, loop side down, under the ring.  Pull the "tails" of the string full the loop.  That's it - you tied a larks head knot.  

Do that 9 more times, so that all 10 strings are on the shower curtain ring.

Next, and this is optional, you want to fray the strings.  

Most will tell you to use a hairbrush.  I'm certain that would work, but I don't own a hair brush,   I have naturally curly hair,  

I use a fork.  And then once the strands are all separated with the fork, I use a nail brush.

The nail brush will pull of fuzz, on this mop head.  That's ideal - you can ball up the fuzz, and use it as a ball on the hat.

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Now to make the hat

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You could just cut two triangles  - but I wanted just one seam, so I went with this shape.  Yes, you could use the cricut maker and rotary blade to cut this..  but it's really much faster to just pull out your scissors.  You do not need this to be exact.  I left a wide bottom so I could fold it over, creating a brim, and add htv to the brim.  I'm planning to use these as name tags on Christmas gifts this year.

I apparently didn't take photos of the hat making process.  I have a lot more of these to make, so I'll come back with photos later.. but essentially, fold in half, sew.  Turn right side out, fold up the brim.  Apply htv.

When using htv, don't forget that the htv goes on the mat shiny side down, and you mirror your image. Then when you weed your text, it will be on a clear plastic backing,  Flip it over, iron it on, peel back the clear backing.

I folded the top of the hat down, and balled up the fuzz I pulled off with the nail brush, and glued it fast.  I hot glued the nose and hat on, and stitched an embroidery floss loop onto the back of the hat, for hanging.