Macramé: An 1890 Manual Says Repeated Half Knots Twist

Thérèse de Dillmont's Encyclopedia of Needlework describes macramé as hand-work made by “the knotting, interweaving and tying together of threads.” Both manuals build their bars from the same move. The drawings above lay the cords flat, so they show the crossings, not the twist. Neither manual gives a load figure for any bar, and the fault drawn further down is one half knot tied the wrong way.

Why repeated half knots twist

Sylvia's numbers the strands 1 to 4 and pins the middle two, 2 and 3, to a cushion as a core. Then the worker should “pass 1 over 2 and 3, and under 4, then pass 4 under 2 and 3 and up through the loop made by 1” and repeat (p. 295). That one move is a half knot, and the bar is the same half knot again and again. “It will be seen as the work proceeds, that the pattern twists of itself,” the 1890 manual says; “The number of repetitions to make one twist is five.”

De Dillmont describes a bar made the same way under another name. Her plaited knots are “formed by a continuous repetition of the first crossing of the threads for making a flat knot” (fig. 531). She words the turn differently: waved knots come from “a slight twist given to the plaited knots from left to right.” So one manual says the bar turns by itself, while the other speaks of a twist given to it.

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Each half knot in this drawing has seven crossings. At three of them the two working cords cross each other; at the other four a working cord crosses a core cord. In all three half knots, the three cord-on-cord crossings share one sign, and the four core crossings share the other. On this page's reading, each half knot leans the bar the same way, and nothing takes the lean back.

Download the repeated half knot crossings (CSV) (what the file holds)

Read through the friction contract, each crossing is a clause, a place where cord can press on cord once the bar is pulled tight. Four of the seven involve a core cord, so the working cords cross the two pinned strands, not only each other; the loose drawing does not model tension or contact. Knitting also repeats one move and builds a sheet of fabric, as knit stitch vs purl shows; here the repeat builds a turning bar.

Alternating the two halves

The Solomon's knot in Sylvia's 1890 manual starts with the same move, then mirrors it: “pass 4 over 2 and 3 and under 1, bring 1 under 2 and 3 and up through the loop formed by 4” (p. 296). Two of these parts make what the manual calls a Double knot. De Dillmont's flat double knot starts the same way: the outer threads cross, “the right hand one under, and the left hand one over the two centre threads,” and are then brought back and tied again (fig. 516).

A. Hyatt Verrill's 1917 rope manual gives the square knot this way: “pass the left end over and under the right end, then the right over and under the left” (Figs. 11–12). On this page's reading, the flat knot is that same left-then-right pair tied around a core, and the twisting bar is half a square knot, repeated.

The square knot and its look-alike, the granny, differ by the same kind of mirror, as square knot vs granny knot shows.

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In this table every sign in the middle half knot is reversed. In the alternating drawing one cord makes every front bar; in the repeated drawing the front bar changes cord each time. Neither manual says the alternating bar twists. On this page's reading, each half undoes the lean of the one before, which fits de Dillmont's word for it: flat.

Download the alternating half knot crossings (CSV) (what the file holds)

How these drawings are tested is set out on which layer was checked.

What macramé is, and where the word comes from

Two manuals give two stories for the name, and this page chooses neither. De Dillmont writes that “Macramé is an Arabic word, signifying an ornamental fringe or trimming.” Sylvia's 1890 edition calls it “nothing but the name given by the Italians round about Genoa” to “a coarse material used for towels, the fringed ends of which are knotted” (p. 289). Neither manual names a source for its account.

Sylvia's 1890 manual calls the work lace, and de Dillmont treats it as trimming, listing “not only fringe and lace, but trimmings of all kinds, in the shape of bands and stripes and headings.” Decorative knots can be read with the same care as working ones; Celtic knot patterns do it for interlace on a grid.

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Download the macramé sources and claims (CSV) (what the file holds)

How it fails: one half knot the wrong way

The fault drawn here is a mix-up of strands, not a broken cord. Sylvia's 1890 manual says strands are “re-numbered at the beginning, not only of every row, but of every stage of a design” (p. 299), a step it mentions “to prevent any errors.” On this page's reading, a worker who counts strand 1 from the wrong side ties the next half knot as its mirror image.

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In this drawing's table, crossings 15 to 21 carry the opposite signs from the two half knots above them. On this page's reading, the wrong half undoes the lean of the one before it, so the steady turn breaks there. No manual read for this page pictures the mistake.

Download the crossings with one half knot reversed (CSV) (what the file holds)

Macramé is decorative: both manuals present it as lace or trimming, and neither gives a load, a test or a strength figure for any bar. De Dillmont praises the work's “great durability and strength” as a trimming but names no test. A twisted bar is not meant to bear a load, and nothing on this page rates it for one.