Tapestry Wall Hanging hotsell Art Hand Woven Home Living Room Bedroom Decoration

Tapestry Wall Hanging Hand Woven dyeing tapestry Bohemian Woven Large Wall Tapestry

One of the earliest recorded uses of macramé-style knots as decoration appeared in the carvings of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Fringe-like plaiting and braiding adorned the costumes of the time and were captured in their stone hotsell statuary.[1]

Arab weavers knotted excess thread along the edges of hand-loomed fabrics such as towels, shawls, and veils into decorative fringes. The word macramé is derived from the Arabic macramia (مكرمية), believed to mean "striped towel", "ornamental fringe" or "embroidered veil".[1] Another school of thought indicates that it comes from Turkish makrama, "napkin" or "towel".[2] The decorative fringes also helped to keep flies off camels and horses in northern Africa.

The Moorish conquest took the craft to Spain, then Italy, especially in the region of Liguria, then it spread through Europe. In England, it was introduced at the court of Mary II in the late 17th century. Queen Mary taught it to her ladies-in-waiting.[3]


Decorative macramé ship
Macramé was most popular in the Victorian era. It adorned most homes in items such as tablecloths, bedspreads and curtains. The popular Sylvia's Book of Macramé Lace (1882) showed how "to work rich trimmings for black and coloured costumes, both for home wear, garden parties, seaside ramblings, and balls—fairylike adornments for household and underlinens ...".[4]

Sailors made macramé objects while not busy at sea, and sold or bartered them when they landed, thus spreading the art to places like China and the New World. Nineteenth-century British and American sailors made hammocks, bell fringes, and belts from macramé. They called the process "square knotting" after the knot they used most often. Sailors also called macramé "McNamara's lace".[4]

Macramé's popularity faded, but resurged in the 1970s for making wall hangings, clothing accessories, small jean shorts, bedspreads, tablecloths, draperies, plant hangers and other furnishings. Macramé jewelry became popular in America. Using mainly square knots and granny knots, this jewelry often features handmade glass beads and natural elements such as bone and shell. Necklaces, anklets and bracelets have become popular forms of macramé jewelry.[5] By the early 1980s, macramé again began to fall out of fashion,[6] only to be revived by millennials.[7][8]