Alternative starting for Friendship Bracelets
Making friendship bracelets of variety requires knowing a number of ways to begin and I’m here today to help with that.
Starting with what might be the most simple we have…
The two sides just come together and start in the top middle. One advantage this has is if you’re going to double it or make a bag like Rapunzel, then this might just be the way to go. I choose it because you can get the strings sorted and make up the diamond of several loops before choosing to join them together.
That explains how these were joined. The same method of the loop, just making a pattern twice as wide.
This is very similar to the previous. I’d describe it as having all the strings needed for a diamond in the Kumihimo braid. I make each starting diamond before I attempt to join them. Great if you want more width with half as many loops. I could imagine a bag done with this style and it coming out quite nice.
This one works very differently. It starts by sending the string to the outside and the first row down is what joins the two sides. I’ve not used this for a bag, but if I were to, I’d join two of these at their high point (make a diamond with the two) and add on until I had the width I desired. (At this point I’m considering what colors I have available as it would make a fun project!)
The advantages are you can use a smaller Kumi and still have room to tie the bracelet on. It also lends itself well to seeing a pattern begin from a different point. Basically, this pattern is similar to the one above it, but the difference in the start changes what got to be in the center.
This was covered in PART 2 OF MAKING MY SISTERS BAG. And shows how I added many strings to be able to have a smaller loop. The advantages are if you are making something huge and didn’t want a huge number of loops, then this might just be the way to go. I’ve used this on a number of bags.
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This would make a great example of this way of doing it. This bag was perhaps bigger than it looks and if all the strings were in the loop it would have been huge and unsightly.
So the next example uses this same way of adding the string on but without starting with the loop…
This comes from the tutorial NECESSITIES BAG and uses two styles. The middle follows the working from the outside to make a V-shape down like we did for the ones that can use a smaller Kumi, and the outsides are just like how I added the strings in the previous two examples. I did it this way because the pouch was meant to hold cards and I wanted to make accessing them easy.
There are a number of reasons knowing how to use these would come in handy. Perhaps a wall hanging. I’ve seen some done where they formed the larks head knot onto a stick and wondered if they ever considered that one day it will need to be washed. Here we can have a couple loops and the start bits so it comes off easy and since I’m using cotton, it washes really easily too.
This basically was done the same way. This is quite a number of years old and was a walking stick I made. The tassels had very small chimes that knocked together while you were walking. Great if you were in bear country.
So I think I’ve covered all the alternative starts I use. I’m aware that some use a macrame knot around a group of strings, but personally, I don’t care for the look and haven’t found a reason why I’d need to use it. Do you have more ideas on how to start a friendship bracelet or have any questions? Please leave your comment below and see how creative we can be.