Librarian invents Macarame Star ornament class

A learning opportunity at the New Richland Public Library over the lunch hour on Wednesday, Dec. 17 was for anyone who wanted to add just one more ornament to their tree this Christmas. Head librarian Kathy Kronebusch showed a table full of ladies how to make Macrame Stars, and it looked like she’s had some practice.

 

There were four women in the class; all were armed with scissors, string, tiny pinecones, peacock feathers, pine branches, artificial wreaths, artificial cranberries and blackberries, multi-colored ribbon, different colored strings including twine, pieces of holly and wire cutters. Kronebusch also brought in coffee cake and peppermint bark to snack on. It was sitting on a table next to some hot glue guns that were plugged in so the glue would be ready once the ladies got far enough into their projects. While the foursome was plugging away on their stars, a woman in the front of the library walked in, the sound of a ringing bell accompanied her, she asked Kronebusch, “Are you still taking donations for the sock drive?” She was told yes and where to place them, said Kronebusch, “Just put it below the Christmas tree in front and we’ll take care of it.”

 

The ladies took two pieces of foam board and glued them together to start; this gave the item eight points. Pins with either white heads or red heads, (heads are the little balls on the dull ends of pins) that stick out on each of the eight points. Once the pins were attached, they chose cotton white string, red string, green string or any string of choice and began wrapping around all of the pins as tightly as possible, eight full times around. With that done the hot glue guns were used to secure the string in place.

 

If the string was twined properly and the glue held, this gave the Macrame Star Ornament enough stability that they could choose what they wanted on the faces of their stars. Some cut off little pieces of branches, others added gold paper. Sally Routh wanted her star to be mostly pinecones with glitter sprinkled on them. Mary Jo Delaitsch liked the little blackberries attached to hers. Another wanted ribbon and cranberries.

 

Kronebusch had previously assembled a few stars to use as a reference and had them displayed on her worktable. She advised that if the ladies wanted to hang their ornaments on their trees, because they are a little heavy, they should use either hot glue to affix the hanging string or pin the string on. One woman said she wanted to frame hers and another didn’t know what she was going to use her ornament for. The other two ladies wanted theirs hanging on their trees. Most of the time these library projects are kits sent between libraries, but, said Kronebusch proudly, “This was all me, all my design and put together for New Richland and New Richland only.”