DesignGeek

When I was about 7 or 8 years old a friend of my family taught me how to make a knotted wristband. I started off with a simple stripe pattern to get the hang of the techniques. Over time I got more adventurous and tried more complicated patterns.

Knotting friendship bracelets was pretty big when I went to school. We gave them as a present to our friends, hence the name friendship bracelet. The more bracelets you had tied around your wrist the more friends you had. A little bit like facebook in a pre-internet world.

We always carried a started bracelet around with us so we could work on them whenever we had a spare second. In the breaks we sat around exchanging the latest pattern and variations. Once I left school I stopped making these bracelets (along with a lot of other things). I remembered them when I was thinking about another project for my blog.

Traditionally the person, who receives a bracelet, has to make a wish when it gets tied around his/her wrist where it stays till it falls off from all the wear and tear. At that moment the wish will come true. That’s at least the theory… My pony never materialised!

The selection of the yarn and the colours is important as this has quite an impact on how the bracelet is going to look. I selected a range of 6 different colours for this bracelet. For a 15 cm bracelet the threads have to be about 120cm long. I like to use quite tightly threaded yarn (like mercerised chrochet cotten) but unfortunately I only had stranded cotton. It’s not perfect but it worked ok. Of each selected colour I cut two threads.

The start is quite tricky. The threads have to be arranged in the right order. To make it a bit easier I stuck the threads in the right order on a little piece of cardboard that I fixed onto my desk. I made sure that I left the ends about 15cm long.

The whole bracelet is made entirely out of knots. Every thread gets tied twice around a neighbouring thread. The knot only varies slightly depending on which side the thread comes from and which side it goes to.

These simple diagrams should help you to understand the different variations of the knot.

I like symmetrical and mirrored patterns. When I started to knot I had no idea how I want the bracelet to look like. I just started and made it up as I went along. Once the bracelet is started the pattern falls into place almost by itself.

After getting the start right it is only a matter of keeping to work on it. It may look really slow and time consuming but the effort is worth while.

I had lots of fun knotting this bracelet and I hope I will knot a few more for my friends. If you see my pony please let me know.

Have a look at Marina Ulmer’s website. She presents a great collection of friendship bracelets with some great instructions.