Braided Bracelet

On one of my many work trips this past month I was lucky enough to spend some time at the West Edmonton Mall.  For those of you not in Canada, West Edmonton Mall is a shopper's haven.  It's the largest mall in North America with over 800 stores and services along with a wave pool park, hotel, ice rink, amusement park and more.

While I was there all of the stores had their spring stock out and I was so happy.  Everywhere I looked there was a definite hippie bohemian vibe with lots of peachy tones and earthy greens, two of my very favourite colours.  Of course, I bought a few things and was inspired to add an accessory to my new spring wardrobe!

Here are the supplies I used:


Add some jewellery glue if you have it.

Steps:
1) Thread three embroidery threads through one hole in a separator bar and tie a knot, leaving a tail of at least an inch on the outside.

2) Braid the embroidery thread the length you need to fit around your wrist.


I found it easiest to secure it first so I could use both hands to braid.

3) At the end of your braid, thread the tail end of the thread through another separator bar and tie another knot.  Don't worry about cutting excess thread yet unless it's really getting in your way.

4) My separator bar had five holes so I repeated these steps four more times, moving to the next hole each time and changing up the combination of thread colours.

Mr. Whiskers found this whole process very fascinating!

 


 5) Now came the most time consuming and frustrating part.  But really that was only because I had to do a bit of trial and error until I figured out a good solution.  I was going to use these little butterfly clips to gather up all of the threads and then hook onto a jump ring.  The problem was that they were far too small, I had too many threads to contend with, and I didn't have any larger ones on hand.

Eventually I found something that worked.  So, first trim all of your threads so that they're the same length, leaving about 1 inch in length.

 I tried to do this next step without glue but I just about tossed the whole project.  If you have nerves of steel and a larger clip you can do it, but I recommend adding some glue to the tips of the threads and sort of gathering them all up together, as well as a few dabs inside the clip to hold it all in place while you're trying to clamp it shut.

I had to search high and low for my jewellery hypo cement glue but eventually I found it.  It's very strong smelling and once it's on your skin, everything sticks to you.  You could try hot glue but I'm not sure that would be any easier to work with.  Despite it's bad qualities, the hypo cement glue really works.

6) Now just carefully guide all of your threads into the clamp and using some pliers squeeeeeeeeeeeeze it shut.

Ideally I would only have one on each end gathering up all of the threads, but the clamps I had on hand were small, so I had to separate the threads into two bunches.

7)  Add a jump ring to each clamp.

8) Connect the two jump rings on each end with another jump ring.

My fingers are now coated in glue~

9) Connect a clasp to the middle jump ring.  If you have a magnetized clasp that works best on bracelets.

All done!

Once I got the hang of gluing the threads into the clasps it all went pretty smoothly.  I have really tiny wrists and I always end up making bracelets a bit too big so this might be something I give away to someone I know.  I might make myself another one using all the same colours or add some beads or something.  I'm not sure yet.  I love embroidery thread because it comes in such a huge array of colours and textures so the sky is the limit~ 

Have fun with this and let me know if you try it out.  Leave a comment below.

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Have a great week!