How To Make A Knot Chain Friendship Bracelet

The weather is terrible, I have read enough Detective Conan mangas to see a murder plot everywhere and the BBC iPlayer is not really inspiring today. So, I need something else to do – something that is preferably productive and ideally creative. Again.

I am saying this to remind my dear readers of the fact that I intend to post Nothing Personal here – or, with the converse argument, only something that would also interest people other than myself.

Therefore, I am teaching you how to make my favourite kind of friendship bracelet today. I am sure you still know these things, everyone had one when I was around 12 and all the girls in my class knew how to make them. I must admit I couldn't stand the normal arrow design with knots all the way through – too big and too complicated. I like simple, pretty things. So, I took a liking towards the Knot Chain.

You will need three things:

• embroidery thread in the colour of your choice
• scissors
• cello tape or a safety pin
  
  

You can get embroidery thread in any crafts shop, I've seen prices ranging from 70p to 90p per colour bundle. Other kinds of thread work too, as long as it's not too thin, but this one is the prettiest. 

Also, don't make the mistake I made and just pull one end until you have a thread of the desired length, otherwise the bundle will end up all entangled like my blues and red...

First, you choose the colours you would like to work into your bracelet and cut the threads in a length that is preferably longer than you need to create a bracelet that will fit around your or your friend's wrist. Shorter would be rather disadvantageous...

Next, tie the whole bundle into a knot to create one end of the bracelet – make sure you leave enough thread on the end to tie the finishing knot when it is worn.

This is where you will need the cello tape or safety pin. Tape the end to a flat surface or pin it to your jeans (credit for this idea goes to my good friend Charlotte) so you can pull the bundle and put some tension on the threads when you are knotting it up. 

If you want to make a bracelet that has only two or three colours, I recommend taking one thread of twice the length and double it up per colour so you can create a loop at one end. That way, your bracelet can also become a decoration on for example a backpack and mark it as yours.

The next step is the one you will be repeating until the bracelet is finished.

Take the thread of colour that you want to work with and wrap it around the whole bundle, coming out below its original position. 

Then, pull it tight. 

Depending on the angle at which you pulled the thread you may have to push up the bit that is now wrapped around the bundle to hide the threads underneath.

Repeat until you've had enough of that colour. 

Due to the alignment of the thread, the knots will be placed slightly off from each other unless you really force it into a different position, but even then you will not be able to move it very far.

Thus, a pattern like that on the right emerges without you doing anything special but knotting the thread around the bundle repeatedly.

Awesome, right?

Once you've had enough of one colour, choose the next and go on as described above. 

Make sure that you make the new thread emerge from the bundle at a point close to where you finished with the previous colour, otherwise the knot pattern will be broken slightly.

In the end, you will end up with a bracelet that could look like this:

The pattern I used here was 12 knots yellow, 11 orange, 10 red, 9 pink, 8 purple, 7 light blue, 6 dark blue, 5 dark green, 4 light green, and the same pattern backwards. At the end I tied the rest of the thread into a knot right after the last knot of yellow and cut it off at the same length as the loose threads at the beginning.

Have fun making your own bracelets! 

If you want to share this manual with others, credit would be much appreciated!