Bead and Knot Cord Bracelet

• Sometimes Homemade
• April 3, 2013
• 9 Comments

I’ve been making a lot of bracelets lately, partly because I love bracelets and it’s on the verge of spring weather here, but I’m also working on a project I’ll reveal soon. Bear with me as I’ll  have a few more DIY bracelet posts over the next few weeks. This bead and knot cord bracelet was something I originally saw on Pinterest from Baby Kaed (no current website found). I figured out how to make my own version.

Supplies:

• 66-70″ of leather, bamboo or other cord
• Small round beads
• Scissors
• Bead Glue (optional)

Step 1: Cut leather cord into three 18″ lengths and one 12″ length. I measured 3 times around my wrist for the 18″ length, so you may need to adjust for your wrist size. Set aside the 12″ cord. (you won’t need this one if you decide to do a different closure)

Step 2: Line up your three 18″ leather cords, move down about 4-5″ from the end of the cords. You’ll tie a knot at that point. For the one I created with leather cord, I used the method below so my knots didn’t look too thick and bulky. Wrap one of the cords around the other two cords 3 times, then go over the top and through all 3 loops to tie the knot. For the bamboo cord, I just tied all three together since it was a lot thinner.

Step 3: Add 2 beads to each cord strand and push them up to the knot. Stagger the beads a little and spread them out over an inch of the cords.

Step 4: Tie another knot about an inch from your first knot with the beads in between. Repeat this process until the bracelet can go all the way around your wrist. For most people this will be 5-6 sets of bead clusters. I used five.

Step 5: For my clasp, I used a macrame sliding square knot closure. I learned the process from this YouTube video, so that’s what I’m going to share with you rather than my own photos (it’s really hard to take one handed pictures for something like this that requires two hands!). You can choose to use any closure you want to though. If you do the sliding knot closure, you’ll overlay the two ends of your bracelet next to each other. You can either keep all 3 cords or clip one. I clipped one after the knot on each side because I didn’t want all three hanging. If you do this, you’ll probably want to glue it with bead glue so it doesn’t pull out.

Step 6: If you’re doing the sliding knot closure, open your bracelet up enough to fit it on your wrist, then tie a knot at the end of each side. Clip the cord close to the knot and glue the ends.

Here’s the final one with black leather cord.

And here’s another one with green bamboo cord.