Rope Rainbow - G Clatworthy author

I’ve been excited to make a rope rainbow since my good friend at The Little Cornish Rainbow walked me through how to do it. It’s a great way to use up leftover yarn and very therapeutic. An added bonus is that you can do it while watching tv over several evenings!

Here is my walkthrough but if you don’t have time to do it yourself, you can always buy one from her!

For this, you will need:

macrame rope – I used 10mm thick for a chunky rainbow
floristry wire
wool in your choice of colours – I used a maroon red, mustard yellow, green, blue and lilac
ribbon to hang with in your choice of colour – I used gold for a bit of bling
needle and thread or hot glue gun
duct tape

First lay out the macrame rope and decide how long you want your inner rainbow layer to be. Cut and secure the ends with duct tape to stop fraying.

Then wrap the rope with floristry wire, I did this twice to get greater structure. Cut the wire.

A layer of the rope rainbow wrapped with floristry wire — Wrap the rope with floristry wire

Next, start wrapping the wool around the rainbow in your chosen colour. To get a neat end, I wrapped over the beginning of the wool. Once it’s wrapped, cut the wool and tuck the end under a couple of layers of itself.

lilac wool wrapped around one layer of the rope rainbow — Wrap the rope with the wool

Lay the rope over the first strand in an arch to get the length for the next layer of your rainbow. Repeat the floristry wire, duct tape and wrapping steps. Repeat this for as many rows as you want in your rainbow, I went for five.

Measuring the next layer of the rope rainbow — Measuring the rope for the next layer

After you’ve finished wrapping the layers, it’s time to attach them together. For this step, you can use a hot glue gun or I used a needle and thread for a neater finish. When using a needle and thread, start in the middle of the rainbow and work out to the ends. I started at the ends first and had to redo as the other end didn’t line up!

sewing together the rope rainbow — Attaching the layers with thread – start at the middle, I had to redo this after starting at the end!

Once the layers were attached, I cut off the duct tape. Then I combed out the ends with my fingers for a frayed effect. I cut to look a little like clouds, or you can trim straight for a neater edge.

Finally, I threaded some gold ribbon between the top two layers and tied it to form a loop for hanging.