How to Make the Chinese Staircase Bracelet
Want to make a gift for your friends? Give them a friendship bracelet and tell them you made it! They'll be very thankful.
Things You'll Need
3 colors or more embroidery floss (about 1 - 1 1/2 arm lengths long)
Tape or clip
Patience and Kindness
Choose your thread. You can use embroidery floss, or plain yarn.
Cut your thread It is usually better to have cut too much, than to not have enough.
Wrap the thread about 4-5 times around your wrist. That much seems to do the job pretty well.
Knot three strings together at one side, so they stay together.
Tape the knotted end onto the edge of a table or to a chair.Tape the knotted side to a table, or stable surface to work on. Another way to do it is to clip it using a clipboard. You can also use a safety pin and pin it to a small pillow, or to the knee of your jeans; or make a loop with the string and put it around your toe. This is convenient especially if you are traveling.
Hold two strings in one hand and the other string in the other hand. Then make a '4' shape with the one string over the two strings..
Take the tail, or end, of the '4' by putting your hand in the wide space of the '4' and pull the tail.
Repeat this 10 to 15 times, then switch colors. You don't HAVE to switch, but if you decide not to, make sure the one color you want to use is longer than the others.
time to switch colors!
Repeat the colors again, or until the bracelet can fit around your wrist loosely, so you can take it off and put on.
Knot the open side, and tie the bracelet together.
Tips
Choose colors of string that go well together (e.g. red, white and blue).
You can use more than three strings.
As you stitch down the bracelet make sure that the pattern is curving nicely and looks like a spiral staircase. You may have to untwist the bracelet between stitches. As you become more experienced your bracelets will look more uniform.
Choose contrasting colors
You can also use a safety pin to pin the string to towels, carpets, pillows, or the knee of your jeans to hold the threads.
Warnings
Sometimes you may get bad knots in the string. Stop what you're doing and carefully pick out the knot. Some people use a small gadget called a "seam ripper" (available at any drugstore, fabric store, or craft store that sells sewing notions). Also, this craft may be hard for small hands.
Remember to tighten each knot, but not too tightly. You'll quickly get the hang of the right tightness as you look at the results of your finished work.
Don't use tape on expensive wood
