Thursday, November 20, 2008

Tutorial: Friendship Bracelet




Basic Friendship Bracelet
By Lux

Difficulty: 1 out of 5

Materials:
Embroidery floss (in several colors or just a few or even just one, you choose)
Clipboard
Scissors
Your creative genius!

1) Measure out about 20 inches of embroidery floss and cut. This should give you plenty of “breathing room” in case you make a mistake and have to cut off and start over. Cut a few more 20 inch pieces. How many depends on how wide you want your bracelet. (I used 6 and ended up with a ¼ inch wide bracelet.) (photo)

2) Tie your floss pieces in a knot about 3 inches from the end and clip the knot onto the clipboard. This will help stabilize your bracelet while you make it. (photo)

3) If you have more than one color, choose a color to make the first row. (I chose red.) If not, pick any piece to begin. This will be string #1. Wrap this string around the string next to it (string #2, orange in the picture) in a clockwise motion (photo) and pull through. (photo)

4) Wrap the next string in the row (string #3, yellow in the picture) in the same clockwise motion. Continue on down the row until you have wrapped string #6 (purple in the picture). (photo)

5) You have made your first row. Repeat the wrapping process with string #2 (orange in the picture), string #3 (yellow in the picture) and so on. (photo)

6) Continue on in the same pattern until your bracelet is as long as you need it. Tie off the end and cut leaving about 3 inches past the knot. This will give you plenty of slack to tie the bracelet onto your best bud.

Tips:
-The more strings you add the longer they have to be in order to ensure a long enough bracelet.
-Keep your knots tight, this will help make the texture nice and even.
-These bracelets tend to twist. You can flatten them out by using an iron on a medium heat setting.
-To keep the individual threads of the embroidery floss from separating you can wax them first using a recently lighted candle.

Variations:
Try for a friendship necklace or a belt if you have the patience!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

If you can't learn how to make a friendship bracelet, you have problems.

Every summer I would make friendship bracelets while "up at the lake" with my cousins. I would wear them until they literally fell off. I recently tried to showing my daughter how to make them. It seems the art of friendship bracelet assembly is lost on her generation.