I Changed Friendship Bracelet Pattern #85880… Here’s What Happened
What happens when you take an existing friendship bracelet pattern, pull it apart, trace where the strings are going, and then start changing things?
In this video, I’m experimenting with friendship bracelet pattern #85880 and using it as inspiration for a new design. I trace the original structure, change the color palette so the individual strings are easier to follow, make a few mistakes along the way (yes, it still happens after all these years!), and eventually turn it into something a little different.
One of the biggest lessons here is something I use all the time when working with complicated patterns: fill in what you know first. Once the easy parts are in place, the confusing parts often become much easier to figure out.
We also end up with a pretty cool new design featuring purples, blues, diamonds, X shapes, and a little extra white that I added simply because I thought it made the pattern work better.
And there’s another possibility I noticed while working on this one: what if we started from the X in the middle and designed outward from there? If you’d like to see me explore that version, let me know in the comments!
💬 Have a pattern you think I should experiment with? Drop your ideas in the comments.
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What do you do when a friendship bracelet pattern is too short to actually fill the bracelet? 🧵
Pattern #85880 has a really cool central design—but when I centered it on my bracelet, I was left with a LOT of empty space at both ends.
So instead of simply trying to repeat the original pattern, I decided to make those sections my own.
In this video, you can watch the entire bracelet come together, including the arrowhead-style sections, the little X/figure-eight shapes at the ends, and my favorite detail: the subtle “jewel” hidden right in the center. That tiny change in the middle is easy to miss, but it keeps the bracelet from feeling like one long series of arrowheads.
This is a 12-string bracelet, and I use quite a bit of segment knotting while making it—working through what I can on one side before moving over to the other. The center is probably the trickiest part, so I’d consider this more of an intermediate friendship bracelet than a beginner project.
The whole bracelet took me about 1 hour and 40 minutes to make.
But here’s what I really want you to take away from this project:
You don’t have to treat a friendship bracelet pattern as something you’re only allowed to copy.
Change it. Extend it. Draw on it. Add something that wasn’t there before. Make the pattern work for the bracelet YOU want to create.
You can find my version of the pattern and printable graph paper at akaawol.com so you can experiment with your own ideas.
💬 And I have a question for you: Which do you prefer—wide friendship bracelets or the skinny, petite ones? Let me know in the comments because I’m genuinely curious what everyone likes to wear and make.
A huge thank you to my YouTube Members for helping make these videos possible. ❤️
If you enjoyed the video, hit Like, Subscribe, and share it with another bracelet maker.
And as always…
Don’t get your strings in a bunch!
