I have a really exciting DIY project to share with you today.
I'll be showing you how to turn a length of rope like this into this.
That's right, today we'll be learning how to make a climbing rope rug and more specifically,
it's called the ocean plait mat.
One of the things that I really like about the ocean plait mat is that it doesn't require
any additional tools.
You don't need a board or nails or any of the other things that some of the other rugs
require.
You just need your climbing rope, or any cord for that matter, and that is it.
Now, I do want to point out that it's not just limited to rugs.
You could use paracord to make a pot grabber, to protect your hands from the hot pot or
you could use paracord to make a place mat.
The options are really endless, so be creative and think about how it might apply to you,
and let's jump right in.
To begin the process, you're going to want to make sure that most of your rope is on
the left and that there's just a little bit left over on the right.
This will set you up for step one.
And the first step is to make an overhand knot, so you'll make a loop in your rope or
cord and then take the short end and thread it through the loop.
Pretty simple so far right?
Hang in there.
And um, so you have your over hand knot.
You'll notice that if you loosen the knot just a little, you have a pretzel shape.
Go ahead and stick two fingers in the top of those pretzel loops and then you're going
to want to just elongate the loops a little bit, or pull bunny ears, or however you want
to describe that process.
Then, you'll notice you have these two loops.
Now you're going to want to flip the right loop over to the left, and once you've done
that, you'll take the left loop and you're going to also flip that over to the left.
So, both loops go in the same direction and this part is much easier with climbing rope
than it is with paracord.
But once you get the paracord to lay flat, it should look like something like that.
The next step is to take the left loop and cross it over the right loop.
So, you could also look at it as "this is the top bight and this is the bottom bight."
And once you've done that, now you're going to go back to working with this long end.
So you'll take the long end and you'll go over the top bight, then under both sections
of the bottom bight, so that's what that looks like.
And then, you're going to want to pull that long end over the last part of the top bight,
so, just to make that a little more clear, this is the top bight.
Notice that this long section of rope goes over the top of both parts of the top bight.
And this is the bottom bight, and it goes under both of the sections of the bottom bight.
So you'll go ahead and continue to pull that long end through, and you'll want to make
sure that you do this somewhat gently so you don't ruin all of your progress this far,
because sometimes if you get too carried away with pulling it, it can kind of mess things
up and you don't want that.
So now that you pulled the long end through, you're back to working with this short end.
Go ahead and take the short end under here.
So you're looping it around and then it's going under this loop, and then over, and
then under, and then over, and under.
So that part, as you could tell, was just a basic weave.
The good news is that at this point in the process, you have the base knot established
and then the rest is relatively easy.
It definitely takes some time, but hang in there, because it's not complicated at all.
I've actually found it to be somewhat relaxing.
But you'll take the long end and you'll just follow this strand.
So, this strand loops around and around, and it keeps going until it eventually gets back
to the start.
So, you're going to just follow that pattern.
As you can see it goes under, so we're going to go under.
Then it goes over, so this strand has got to go over.
Then under, under, over, under, and then I usually pull all the slack through as I go
and you can see that this is a straight line, so it's fairly easy to pull all that slack
through.
It's true whether you're working with paracord or climbing rope, so I try to look for those
long straight sections.
And every time I go through a long straight section I'll pull all the slack through, and
then you're going to take the long end again and just keep following that short section.
Again, this is kind of a straight piece, so I'm going to pull all of the cord through.
And as you pull through, you're going to want to make sure that you keep this tail end free
and that you don't bury it.
And it might seem kind of weird to mention it with paracord, because I'm dealing with
such a short segment, but if you just get carried away with climbing rope and then you
toss all the excess over the end, it can bury that tail end relatively easy, and that's
going to slow you down quite a bit so make sure that you kind of throw the end far away
and then all of the excess stays away from the end so the end is easy to find and you
can begin threading it easily the next time you need to start your weave.
So again, I'm just following that short end.
I'll put an annotation so if you get the general idea you can skip ahead, but for the rest
of you, I'm going to make one complete loop just to make it clear what you do after you
finish the first loop.
So, I'm almost there.
But you just keep pulling the long end through.
Like I said, you'll want to make sure that there's no excess and that everything is paired
up really neatly, because that'll make your rug look awesome in the end.
Or whatever you happen to be making.
Like I said there's a ton of different options that you can make with this weave.
So, it's not just climbing rope rugs, which is one of the things I really like about it.
So, Now as you can see, we're about to go back and start another loop.
So, it's really easy.
You just keep following this end now, so as you can see it goes around under these two
and then over and then down and follows the weave again.
So just so you see how that's done, i'm going to weave this and show you what it looks like.
But it just keeps going around and as you can see, we've started the third loop right
here.
Alright so I've woven this just about as tight as I can go.
I don't think there's a way that I can weave it though any more.
I have both of these pieces right next to each other, so it looks like a good place
to wrap up.
So what I'll do is I'll take this and I'll flip it upside down.
And we're just going to cut these two strands, maybe.
So we cut these two strands and then we're going to want to just tack these underneath,
so you'll take a lighter and singe the ends here.
Basically hit it with a lighter.
Climbing rope takes a while to heat up, but after you get it nice and molten then you'll
just take it and press it down into the bottom, so that it seals.
And then, when you flip it over you have your ocean plait mat.
Now like I said you can use this as a, well something this size would work well as a coaster
I guess, but um, you know, with a climbing rope it could be a door mat.
With a lot more paracord it could be a place mat.
So use your imagination.
Come up with a project and let us know what you think.
We always love hearing what you think of these projects, so leave us a comment below.
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