Chinese Staircase Friendship Bracelet

And my friendship bracelet kick continues...

Here is another easy friendship bracelet to do. It's on of the first bracelets I learned to make because of it's simplicity as it consists of using one string to tie a knot around all the others in the bunch.  A bunch consist of however many colors you want to include in the bracelet.

Here's how it's done.

Material:

DMC floss -- as many colors/strings as you want.

Holder:  Cardboard and binder clip (or clipboard)

*Note: The length of the floss will vary depending on the length of the bracelet and the amount of strings you want to use.  A yard should work as a good starting point. You can adjust length on the next bracelet. :)

How To:

1.  Hold all of the strings together and tie a knot near the top.  If you chose to make a bracelet with a few colors you'll probably want to double the length, fold it in half and make a knot near the fold like shown.

2.  Clip the bracelet to the cardboard with the binder clip just above the knot.

3.  Separate the a string of the first color you want to use.  Holding everything aside from the separated string, tie a knot using the separated string around the bunch.

4.  Continue to make knots using the separated string around the same bunch until you've reached the desired length for that color. If you make all the knots the same way, you'll notice that the knots will form a twist around the bunch, a bit like a spiral staircase.

5.  When you're ready to switch to another color, grab the next color you want to use and let the previous color rejoin the bunch.  You can now start making knots again.  Watch where the knot bump is landing, try to position it so that the spiral staircase continues unbroken.

6.  Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the desired length of bracelet is reached.

*Note: Step 7 is only really useful if you folded the strings in half to make a top loop in Step 1.
7.  Once the bracelet length has been reached, put the whole bunch together and divide the strings evenly into two.  Here, I braided each divided grouping for about 1.5", tied a knot in the end and cut the excess string.  These braids are what is used for tying the bracelet (only works if you made a loop on top).

That's it.

Enjoy making these easy bracelets.

Wider Square Knot Friendship Bracelet

So, apparently, I'm on a friendship bracelet making kick.  Here's another friendship bracelet that I made using generally the same method as the previous post, only with more strings.

In this bracelet, I used 8 strings.  Each row is made up of 3 sets of square knots (where a set of square knots is equal to a square knot and it's reverse knot , 2 knots total).

Make the first set with the first 4 strings (just like before).
Make the second set with the last 4 strings.
And lastly, make the last set with the 4 middle strings.

Ta da.

Happy Weekend!

Square Knot Friendship Bracelet

A few weekends ago, my sister, cousin, and I decided to make some friendship bracelets.  We made a couple of different kinds including the knot friendship bracelet that I blogged about last year.  The square knot friendship bracelet is one of the types that we made.  We used cord to make these easy bracelets.  Also, we thought of a better way to hold the cords while making bracelets.

Okay, so here's how we made them.

Kumihimo Braided Bracelet

This kind of braiding reminds me of those plastic keychain weaves that we made way back when.  In slightly more technical terms, according to wikipedia, kumihimo is a form of japanese braiding that interlaces cords and ribbons. It doesn't necessarily require a loom, but the loom is mightly useful.  I've created a template for you to download.

Materials:
ribbon (I'm sure you can use different media such as yarn maybe dmc thread )
kumihimo loom

Download template here.

How To:

- Create a cardboard cutout with the template.  You can glue the template on the cardboard or just trace it.  You can use an exacto knife to cut the circle in the middle, and scissors to cut the little notches.

Okay, so I'm gonna cheat a bit here...





Anyway, the video shows you what you need to know, but the basics are:
1. First,  find the middle of the ribbon (4 ribbons with the of length 4 ft) and tied the ribbons together, then feed the knot thru the hole in the middle of the loom

.
2. Next, attached the ribbon 2 on top, 2 on the bottom, 2 on the left 2 on the right. I also wrote down ABCD on the template so I know what section I'm working on (just a marker).


3. For the actual braiding, remember, top right goes down, bottom left, goes up, turn disc counter clockwise and start again. :-)

4.  You pretty much keep on doing that til you have the length you want.  It actually takes a lot of time to get a decent length, but it looks great in the end.

 5.  Once you've braided to the length of the bracelet, you can make another knot at the end of the braid, I actually, just took half of the ribbons and made a knot around the other half so the knot wasn't so thick.

There you have it, Kumihimo braiding. I love the design it creates.  I think this should work fine with DMC thread, but I haven't tried it. If you try it with DMC or yarn, please let me know how it goes. :-)

Knot Friendship Bracelet

Wikipedia describes friendship bracelets as special bracelets given from one friend to another as a symbol of friendship. These kinds of bracelets are definitely known more by the name friendship bracelet, but it doesn't have to just be a symbol of friendship.

One of my friends recently shared a tradition with us about creating these bracelets before heading off to a journey. Thus allowing it to represent the memories of that journey. Along the same lines, the bracelet can represent a memorial or a remembrance of a passed away friend or loved one. It can be worn to represent your loyalty to a school or favorite team, or maybe to represent you by showing off your favorite colors.

Which ever reason you choose to make or wear one, this bracelet is quick and easy to make and looks good.

Here's how I made them.

Materials:
- DMC thread (two colors of your choice)
- Some way to hold it in place. ( I used binder clips and a candle jar)

How To:

1. Cut one of each color of DMC thread to the length of about 1.5 yards each and fold in half and place both threads together.

2. Holding both threads together make a knot about an inch away from the fold.

3. Loop thru a binder clip and clip somewhere, or find some other way to secure it to a place where you can begin making the bracelet.

4. Separate the two colors. It's important that throughout the process keep the colors on their correct sides. In this case, yellow on the left, and black on the right. If you don't, you get weird twists and irregularities in the bracelet.

5. Keeping the right thread (black) straight, make a knot (sorta like an upside down figure 4) using the left thread. Tighten knot to the top of bracelet.


6. Do the same as step 5 with the left thread (yellow) straight, and making a knot with the right thread. Tighten again.

7. Continue to do step 5 and 6 til the bracelet is as long as you want it to be.

8. When you've reached the desired length, remove the bracelet from however you held it in place. Don't cut the excess thread til you're ready to tie it on your wrist or someone else's wrist.


9. Tie it on someone's wrist. I find it works best to thread one of the sides of the bracelet (yellow or black threads) thru the top loop (the loop that was at the top of the bracelet), then tie knots. 3 knots work well. Then I make knots on each side (on the yellow threads, then on the black threads). Afterwards, I cut the threads just after the last knots.

Ta Da! The colors I chose, yellow and black are for the Steelers, my bro's favorite team.