With just three last official days left of summer join me in denying that it's really over, with one more summer craft project from my Maine excursion, before inevitably deciding on your halloween costume and consuming large amounts of pumpkin candles.
You don't have to be a certain age to wear friendship bracelets. In fact, the older I get, the more I appreciate a great true-blue and am ever more ready to sport this age old tradition of the wrist, even if that means pushing corporate casual boundaries. Start by making this Chevron Style bracelet and you'll be able to downgrade to the Single Angled Row easily.
{DIY Friendship Bracelet}
Materials Needed:
// \\ Embroidery Floss // \\ Scissors // \\ Heavy Card Stock or Chip Board // \\ Friend // \\
Embroidery Floss is available at any craft store, just pick your colors. I suggest 3 - 10, the more colors you have the wider it will be. Also, the more colors you have the longer your threads need to be before starting.
There's no science behind how long to make your threads before cutting, I would start with about 72" in length, then fold it in half and tie a knot - so that your strings are each 36", you have a loop at the end and two of each color.
Cut a 1" Slit at the top center of a piece of chip board (could be the back of a notepad) Tape your loop and knot behind this, leaving your strings dangling in the front.
Cut several more 1" Slits along the bottom of the chip board about 1/2" apart - you want more slits than you have strings so as you work you continuously have a place to secure your string.
Arrange your strings according to how you want them to show up in your bracelet. The ones along the outer edges will end up meeting up in the center, so alternating these gives a variegated effect (as I've done in the photos)
{Step One}
{Step Two}
Now that your ready to start, here are a few tips: You're always going to start on the Outside and work towards the inside and you'll essentially be making (2) knots on each string using the string that you have picked up.
Pick up the first string and start the 1st knot... Create a sort of "4" going over the string your about to tie a knot on, then going under, and then back up through the loop you just made.
Pull that string up and through and viola! You've made your first knot! Now you'll just be repeating that twice on all strings until you get to the center...
{Step Three}
{Step Four}
{Step Five}
{Step Six}
Then start on the other side, again, working from the outside in...
{Last Steps}
(finally}
Each round makes one set of stripes on your bracelet, so you just have to keep going - perfect for a long car ride!
I wish you luck on your friendship bracelet making, let me know if you need clarification with any of these steps by posting a comment!
Ahh summer camp... I have many fond memories of summer camp as a kid and am lucky enough to get to re-live it every year with an annual golden ticket to my friend's cabin in Maine. It's our college reunion of sorts and all of my friends from design school crash in the upstairs sparsely furnished bedrooms or pitch a tent along the lake front. With so much sequestered creativity and lack of cable or wifi, a lot of weirdness and fun ensues. It's a great time to reunite, work on arts and crafts, and eat the best meals a group of glampors could ask for - homemade ricotta, two kinds of homemade ravioli (ricotta spinach + lobster), homemade vodka sauce, homemade pesto, homemade alfredo, and homemade bread,to recall just one dinner.
{the bootie toolkit}
Deciding on a craft or two to bring before embarking on the long drive up coast is no easy feat and while I was tempted to toss my sewing machine in the backseat, I settled on a more conservative knitting project for the sake of our carpoolers.
{bootie in progress during roadtrip}
I've had this baby moccasin bootie project half-started and stashed away for several years now, all the while booty-less babies were being born. It just wasn't right. So the night before setting out I called on the knitting talents of a great friend, who was willing to spend her Friday night teaching me all the new techniques I would need to know to get through the pattern.
It took her four hours to help me half way through the pattern, it took me another four days to complete... the first bootie. I dreamt of returning from camp, pockets rich with booties, babies lining up for adorable alpaca moccasins. Boy (or girl) was I wrong.
{lakeside knitting - I found listing out the steps easier to read than in paragraph form}
{finally off the knitting needles...}
I have a bit more practice to go before I'm churning these out overnight but my knitting vocabulary has expanded exponentially. Here's a list of the techniques that you can plan on learning while making these if you start out as I did (a talented flat scarf knitter with some ribbing experience):
reading a pattern
knitting in the round with multiple separate needles (although the pattern could be adapted for using the type of needles that are connected)
and my favorite part, the "Duplicate" embroidery stitch for the toe decoration
While incredibly challenging, it was satisfying to see the little foot shaped sock emerge. I'll update once I've completed the set... For now I'd like to ask baby Clara, Reid and Ellis to stop growing your feet for awhile.
{finishing touches using the "duplicate" embroidery stitch}
This post is dedicated to Shark Week: for inspiring the pirate in us all and the movie Sharknado.
{a handmade card is such an easy alternative to the grocery store offering}
In lieu of flying to Texas during my friend's 8th month of pregnancy to decorate the nursery for her, I pinned pirate themed ideas to my pinterest board and mailed her a gift box full of the cutest pirate themed items I could find...
{Pirate Booty}
Here's what I included:
Scull and Crossbone Hand-knit Baby Booties via Etsy here (the woman was super nice and even included an eye patch)
Pirate Nap Book (about learning colors) via Target here
A couple brightly striped outfits found at Target and Old Navy...
And a bag of my favorite snack for the Mama, Pirate Booty!
{Treasure Box made out of a plain white mailing box drawn with markers to look like faux wood grain}
{tiny booties}
{my pirate box ready to ship - I used black tissue paper + skipped formal wrapping paper}
She picked a pirate themed nursery based off of the bedding she had selected, but I could imagine this working for many other baby room themes: farm animals, the alphabet or flowers for a baby girl?
Sometimes you just can't be everywhere you would like to be, mailing a care package makes the distance more bearable. Seeing a picture of little Luke two months later in his eyepatch wasn't bad either...
{Baby Luke as Blackbeard Baby "Shiver me timbers!"}
