How to Make a Friendship Bracelet

Guide Note Looking for a craft to do with younger teens, or to relive your own summer camp days? Friendship bracelets are a safe, easy and mess-free craft you can learn (or re-learn!) in an afternoon.

Table of Contents

Friendship Bracelet Tips

  1. Choose 8-10 strands of embroidery floss.
  2. Try a round or flat design.
  3. Use a double half-hitch as your basic stitch.
  4. Tie off the ends with an overhand knot.
  5. Give the finished bracelet to a friend!

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Introduction

(CC photo by Annie Mole)
(CC photo by Annie Mole)
  • Making a friendship bracelet is an ideal craft project for beginners, but has something to offer experienced crafters too. Friendship bracelets are inexpensive to make and require relatively few materials. It's simple to learn the basic patterns. As you get more experienced, you can move on to advanced patterns or even try designing your own!
  • Some people say that the bracelets symbolize friendship between the maker and the wearer. Like a good friendship, bracelets are durable. Traditionally, you give a bracelet to a friend, and the friend wears it until the bracelet falls off on its own.1

Step 1: Gather Supplies

  • These are the supplies you'll need to make your first friendship bracelet:
  1. Thread. Embroidery floss is the most common type of thread used for making friendship bracelets.2 .
  2. Scissors.
  3. Something to hold your project in place. You'll be pulling on the threads, so attach them to something firm. You can tape them down, use a clipboard, safety pin them to your pants or even tie them to your toes!3 4 5

Step 2: Choose a Design

(Creative Commons photo by Dicemanic)
(Creative Commons photo by Dicemanic)
  1. Choose Your Colors: About 8-10 strands make a reasonably-sized bracelet. You can make each thread a different color or include each color more than once.5
  2. Choose Your Pattern: Two simple patterns are a round bracelet, also called the Chinese Staircase, and a flat bracelet, also called the Candy Stripe.63
  3. Cut Your Threads: The threads should be from 25 inches to 3 feet long, depending on the pattern and the desired finished length.3 4
  4. Tie Threads Together: Line your threads up so the ends meet. Tie the threads together in an overhand knot, about 3 inches from the ends.4
  5. Attach Threads: Attach your threads to something stable like a bedpost or clipboard.

Step 3: Tie the Basic Knot

  • To make this knot, you tie one thread (we'll call it Thread A) around another thread or set of threads (we'll call those Thread B).
  1. You tie a right-handed double half-hitch by wrapping Thread A around Thread B twice.8
  2. Start with Thread A to the left of Thread B.
  3. Hold Thread B taut in your non-dominant hand.
  4. Pass Thread A in front of and to the right of Thread B, leaving a small loop. (Like a number "4.")
  5. Bring the end of Thread A back in front of Thread B and through the loop.
  6. Keep holding Thread B taut and pull on Thread A until the knot is tight.
  7. Repeat.

Tips

  1. Remember to repeat the knot to make a full double half-hitch.8
  2. Hold Thread B taut. Otherwise the knot will turn inside out and become the color of Thread B.
  3. For the left-handed version, reverse direction. Start with Thread A on the left and pass it in front of Thread B and to the right.

Step 4: Create the Body

(Creative Commons photo by Brenna)
(Creative Commons photo by Brenna)
  • To make the flat bracelet:
  1. Tie your leftmost thread around each other thread, moving from left to right.
  2. Repeat knot until you reach the end of the row. You will have a horizontal stripe in the color of the first thread.
  3. Choose the leftmost thread and repeat steps 1 and 2. This will create a second horizontal stripe.
  4. Repeat steps 1, 2 and 3 until the bracelet has reached the desired length.
  • To make the round bracelet:
  1. Tie your first thread around all other threads.
  2. Repeat knot until you have a long vertical stripe in the color of the first thread.
  3. Choose a new thread and knot it around all other threads.
  4. Continue until the bracelet has reached the desired length.

Step 5: Finish Your Bracelet

  1. Braid the threads together.9
  2. Divide the remaining threads into groups of 3 or 4 and make small braids.9
  3. Add beads to the ends.4

References for How to Make a Friendship Bracelet

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 eHow.com: How to Know the Meaning of Friendship Bracelets
  2. ↑ wiseGEEK: What are Friendship Bracelets?
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 MakingFriends.com: Diagonal Friendship Bracelet
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 How-To-Make-Jewelry.com: Friendship Bracelet Instructions - The Candy Stripe Embroidery Floss Pattern
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 wikiHow: How to Make a Friendship Bracelet
  6. ↑ wikiHow: How to Make the Chinese Staircase Bracelet
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Heather's Friendship Bracelets: How To Make Friendship Bracelets
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 About.com: Friendship Bracelets: Basic Knot WARNING: Pop-ups
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 About.com: Friendship Bracelets: Finishing Technique WARNING: Pop-ups

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