Busy Hands, Decorated Wrists

At the end of a trying day I really only feel like wrapping myself up in my fuzzy robe and watching a movie. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is a nagging feeling in the back of my brain that tells me I need to DO something other than be a lump on the couch. I have eased the nags by taking out my embroidery floss and making friendship bracelets. I recently found a helpful tutorial with tips on Purl Bee with a few different patterns I haven't tried yet.

It helps to read the comments in tutorials because someone left a wonderful tip about using a cardboard sheet with slits in the bottom to keep the floss in order.

Without the cardboard with slits, my floss was becoming a large tangled knot at then end. Pretty to look at but quite frustrating.

Turns out I had been making my knots far to tight and the bracelets were curling up into a tight ball. I tried again and it worked much better.

I have a large collection of floss and a couple of girls that love to dress up, so my hands will be kept busy and their wrists will be colourfully decorated for months to come.

Do you make friendship bracelets? Do you have pictures of what you've made or links to good tutorials you've discovered? Please share them in the comments!

...J

Friendship Bracelets

The other day I found a really interesting tutorial from Honestly WTF for chevron friendship bracelets. The only downside to this tutorial I found is that since I've never made one before I had a lot of questions that aren't covered in the steps.

About the same time Anika mentioned making bracelets for her niece & nephew. I asked if she could recommend a tutorial and she went one step further, she created her own! Her new blog, Classettes, will house her craft, art & design tutorials and the first two posts were friendship bracelets. I finally had a bit of a lull this weekend and took that opportunity to watch this video, gather my material and give it a go.

I started by making one for my daughter. I have been wearing a friendship bracelet from Sumi Senthi's mail art package and my daughter had been requesting one of her own.

For the wee little.

Anika's tutorial was easy to follow and thorough. I made an alternating red and pink strand for my daughter. Through most of the process she was hanging over my shoulder, asking questions and wondering why it was taking so long. For the record it was only a 10 minute project but that is an eternity to a 3 year old.

And one for me!

I had about half of it left so I made a small one for myself as well. This one is half pink and half red.

I'd like to try this out again with other colours and experiment with adding some beads. I'll likely try out her other one and then I might be savvy enough to try the chevron bracelet.

REFERENCES 

Anika's Bracelet tutorial 1
Anika's Bracelet tutorial 2
Honestly WTF Chevron Bracelet