Make it Monday: Hemp Bracelet

This week's Make it Monday is a pretty easy one. If you have had any experience making "friendship bracelets", then this tutorial will be a cinch. This bracelet uses a basic right and left square knot with a unique anchor for a closure. 

Supplies needed:

Hemp in two colors (natural for the inside, colored for the outside), 

scissors

an anchor charm (I got a pack of them at Craft Warehouse for $5)

Okay here we go!

1.  First you will need to cut the lengths of hemp. The best measurement that I have found is five times around your wrist for the neutral color and then twice that length for the colored. You will use much more of the colored hemp.  Don't be afraid to measure liberally.  I don't know how many times I have tried to skimp on string and ended up with 1/2 inch less than I needed.

2.  Slide one end of each piece of hemp through the eye of the anchor then fold each in half with the anchor at the center.  

3.  Tie a knot under the anchor as shown below:

4.  Arrange the strings so that the neutral ones are in the middle and colored are on the outside. At this point I taped the top to a binder to keep it flat and still but my favorite method is to hook a safety pin through the top and pin it to the leg of my jeans. This works marvelously on car rides!  

5.  Now it's time for the first square knot. You will be making knots with the colored string around the neutral ones. Take the string on the left and cross it over the other three so that it looks like a number 4.

Then take the string on the right and loop it over the left, under the two neutral and then back over the left so that it looks like this:

Then pull it tight. There should be a bump on the right side. 

6.  Repeat on the other side. So this time, the right string goes over and the left under and out.

Now there will be one bump on each side.

7.  Keep making knots on each side until you reach the length that you need to go around your wrist.  If you loose track of where you are at, look at what side your last bump is on and make a 4 with that string.  If you mess up it will look like this with two bumps on one side:

8.  When you get to the end make a regular shoelace knot on one side with the colored string.

9.  Now you need to make a loop with the neutral strings. This can be a bit tricky and might take a couple tries. First fold the neutral strings into the size of loop that you want.

Next take the whole bracelet and tie a loop around itself. there will now be a knot in the middle of your bracelet that you will have to work down to the end. This is easier to do if you keep the knot loose.

When you get the knot to the end, pull it tight and pull the colored strings through the knot. Now just cut the excess off and you are done!

I love this bracelet because of the combination of colors, the nautical theme and how easy it is to take on and off.

Stay crafty,