DIY Weekender

I thought it might be cool to put up a blog post about one of my favourite spare-time activities - Making Friendship Bracelets.  I'm not very skilled at it but I like the colour threads you can play with and how pretty they can look with embellishments!  Very on trend for this fall! It's taken me a while to compose all the bits and bobs, hence why it's taken so long to get this post up!

Double Chevron Friendship Bracelet

What you will need:

Different Coloured Embroidery Thread x3 (Minimum)

Scissors

Safety Pin/ Upholstery Pin

Cushion

Embellishments (Beads/ Pearls/ Diamante)

Method:

1. Taking your threads, cut them into 2x 60 inch lengths per colour (allow more or less depending on what you want to make, you'll need more for an anklet).  If you have used three colours, you should now have six pieces of cut thread.  

2. Next fold the entire length of the strings in half.  At the looped end, make a single knot, this will act as the clasp to fasten the bracelet once complete

3. Taking your safety pin/ upholstery pin, fasten the strands of thread to the cushion at the looped end (see image below).

4.  Now you'll need to arrange your threads into a colour order, which will create the pattern to your bracelet.  In this case we will label the colours as numbers to make it easy to understand. In my case pink is (1), teal is (2), orange is (3) and blue is (4).  The order should run as follows 1234 4321 1234 4321 from left to right (see images below).  

5. Now it's time to start knotting!  The images below will show you how best to do this, but I will give you little description here too.  Starting with the two central threads, both labelled (1), knot them together using a forward knot.  Make a four shape, placing the left thread over the right thread (pic.1), looping the left thread back underneath the right thread (pic.2). All knots must be made twice in order to finish the knot.  When working from left to right use a forward knot and when working from right to left use a backward knot (pic.3, pic.4). Here's some images:

6. So the order of knotting will be as follows, knot the central (1) and (1) together.  Working from the centre out, in the right direction, forward knot (1) with (2), (1) with (3) and (1) with (4).  Working from the outside to the centre, in the left direction, backward knot (1) with (2), (1) with (3) and (1) with (4).  When 1 and 1 meet at the point of the chevron, backward knot them together.  One chevron is now complete.  Working on the other chevron, again from the centre out, this time in the left direction, backward knot (1) with (2), (1) with (3) and (1) with (4).  Working from the outside to the centre, in the right direction, forward knot (1) with (2), (1) with (3) and (1) with (4). When (1) and (1) meet at the point of the chevron, forward knot them together.  One colour row should now be complete.

7.  To add embellishments, thread beads over the central knot (pic.1) and then continue to knot around them as normal (pic.2).

8.  To finish the bracelet, split the threads in half, so that there are eight threads in each half (pic.1).  Now make two plaits using the four strand braiding method.  Gather threads into pairs (pic.2), take the two outer paired threads, and place them in between the two inner paired threads, placing the left paired thread over the right paired thread (pic.3).  Repeat this process until they're at the desired length (pic.4), keep measuring it against your wrist or ankle to make sure it makes it to the looped end.

  

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have! If you have any suggestions as to new designs or different methods, comment on here with your thoughts! Thanks