T-Shirt Bracelet {Finger Weaving}

• Sometimes Homemade
• March 27, 2013
• 8 Comments

I’m so ready for spring, I can’t stand it. Last March my son and I were flying a kite in shorts at the park in March, this year we had 4″ of snow two days ago. I needed a little ray of sunshine, so I decided to tackle a project that makes me think of warmer days ahead. I’ve seen a lot of t-shirt bracelets on Pinterest lately. I decided to try my hand at making some by finger weaving. This is the same technique I used as a kid making what seemed like miles and miles of ropes of yarn. I don’t think I ever made anything useful out of them at the time. This t-shirt bracelet took about 10 minutes including cutting up my t-shirt.

Supplies:

• T-shirt or other jersey knit fabric. 
• Scissors

Cutting up your t-shirt: Cut off the hem of your t-shirt first and discard. I like to use one long continuous strand so that I don’t have any visible knots in the middle of my bracelet. You can do this by cutting your t-shirt on a slight diagonal. You’ll need a 1″ wide strip about 100 inches long. It’s okay if it’s not completely even or uniform. This won’t matter once you stretch it out.

Stretch out your material length-wise. You can either stretch it by pulling it between your hands, or step on one side and pull up. Stretch out the whole length of the material you cut.

I’m right handed, so I’m showing this using my left hand as the base. Start your weave by putting your t-shirt rope between your middle and ring finger with about a 5″ tail in your palm and the rest behind your hand. Weave behind your middle finger, around your index finger to the front. Then go behind your middle finger, around it and then back behind your index finger.

Go back in front of your index finger, but this time go straight across both fingers and put the t-shirt rope between your middle and ring finger.

Take the bottom strand on your index finger and pull it over your finger.

Then do the same thing with the bottom strand on your middle finger.

Wrap the length of the t-shirt rope behind both fingers and back around in front of both fingers, repeat the steps above by pulling the bottom thread over your fingers again. Keep going with this same pattern. Mine tends to automatically work its way up my fingers for some reason, so I don’t try to fight it and just work with it up there after the first few passes. After you have an inch or two trailing behind your fingers, take the tail and pull it tight. Continue to do this every few weaves to keep your weave tight.

Continue on until your woven part is the length you need for your bracelet. I do mine about an inch shorter than my wrist size so that when I tie it, it’s a perfect fit without being loose.

Remove the loops from your fingers being careful not to unravel any of your bracelet. Then take the long end you’ve been using to weave and put it through both loops. Pull it tight.

Finally, take the two ends of your bracelet and tie them together in a double knot. Then, cut off the ends.

That’s it, you’re done! This is such a fun casual summer bracelet you can wear alone or with other bangles. They’re so easy and quick you can make one to match every swimsuit!

You can also make a wider bracelet by using three or four fingers instead of just two. I don’t care for the thicker bracelets on my wrist. Here’s a link to a great tutorial by V. and Co. where she shows how to do the four finger method. She also shows how to tie t-shirt strips together if you don’t want to do one continuous one.