Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com I'm going to show you how to make a macrame link bracelet. So we have two different styles in our exclusive kit. We have a style that is the crystal encrusted infinity macrame bracelet and it has this crystal encrusted infinite link and then we have the arrow link macrame bracelet and it has this arrow link. So the construction on the two different styles is exactly the same and I'm going to go ahead and demonstrate one of the arrow links but it will be just the same if you use the infinity link. So the supplies that you get in your kit are a bobbin of knotting cord and this is one millimeter knotting cord you'll get one link and a tube of E6000 glue and the infinity links come with the same bobbin of knotting cord and the same tube of glue and then they come with the link. See this one here, we're gonna make another one of these to show you and other tools you're going to need is a pair of scissors a ruler and then a piece of scratch paper and something to use as an applicator for the glue. You can you describe a wire you can use a toothpick you do want something to help you spread the glue pretty precisely because you're going to be using it just in you're knots and you don't want to get everywhere I've made them all the same size and they are adjustable. So if you hold on you can hold onto the sides and pull open that up. You're gonna be able to fit that over about and nine inch diameter if you measure it around the knuckle part of your hand and it's nine inches or less this size will work fine for you you just put it over your hand and then pull it back down and it's going to adjust anywhere from about six and a half to eight inches bracelet size so that's going to fit a large percentage of people. So I'm just going to show you the instructions for that. If you need to make it longer you would just add extra square knots in. There will be some cord left, some extra from the pieces that you cut so if you're only making it a little bit larger you should be able to stick with the measurements that I give you if you're going to be making it significantly larger then you want to cut some extra cord. I'm going to cut all my cord first find the end of you're knotting cord. You're gonna cut one 1 foot piece and set that aside now you'll cut two 2 foot pieces and then we need two 3 foot pieces and that's all the core that we need for this bracelet you can see we have a lot of leftover cord so you can buy yourself new focals, new links and make yourself more bracelets or you can just keep to bracelets that are just knotting and you have all you need right here because you'll have leftover glue as well so the one other thing that I forgot to mention that you will need is some way to affix your work to your work table of your surface. I'm just going to tape my onto my work table if you have a really nice table you definitely don't want to just tape down to your table you can tape to the underside of your table or you can use a clipboard, you can also use a macrame board which is a really handy tool if you do a lot of knotting to invest in. For the purposes of simplicity I'm just going to tape my work down. First thing we're going to do is take the two 2 foot lengths of your cord fold one in half take your link and take that folded end go up from the bottom to the top, pull the loop through until you have a couple inches, then open a loop, reach through and grab the cord from below and pull it tight that's a Lark's head knot tie the other end on to the other side exactly the same way fold in half take that folded end go up from the bottom through the loop pull a couple inches, open that loop and pull the end cords through and I'm gonna go ahead and do those first so that I can use the second end to secure my work. I'm actually going to tape that part down spread the cords and tape it down and you want to use something like masking tape that isn't gonna leave anything yucky on your cords. Don't use duct tape just use something that's gonna be a little bit more gentle now take one of your three foot lengths and fold it in place the center of that fold right behind the cords that are attached to the link so that we're going to be doing macrame square knot. Macrame square knots are always made with two long after cords tied onto two shorter inner cords, the center cords so often they will be both attached to the piece that you're knotting from but I like the look of having just the center cord attached to the link, it keeps it a little bit cleaner and it's a little bit more low profile so I'm actually just going to start my macrame knot onto the center cord without attaching the center cord to my link. The first step in the square knot is to take the left cord and bring it under the center cords and don't yank on it. We want that center to stay right there be careful not to disturb that. Take the left cord under the center cords then take the right cord underneath that cord that we just moved over the center cords and down through the loop on the left. You wanna keep that knot fairly centered pull its snug. You can hold on to those center cords on scoot it up until it meets that lark's head knot. Pull down on the center cords and push up on that knot and kinda really snugged up the second half of our macrame square knot is going to take the left cord over the center cords take the right cord over that, under the center cords and through the loop and pull snug. You wanna make sure your center cords don't get twisted. Pull that nice and tight and again snug it right up against the link in that knot there. So each macrame square knot has two steps I'm going to repeat those two steps take the left cord under the center, take the right cord under that, over the center and through the loop and pull tight the second half will be taking the left cord over the center taking the right cord over that cord we just moved under the center and through the loop that's our second macrame square knot it's like little sideways V's it's going to go down down and a little V that's one square knot and that's the second square knot. You need to make sure to alternate whether you go under or over with your left cord first. If you just keep going under or just keep going over it will twist. So to keep it nice and flat you wanna make sure that alternating. I'll do it one more time take the left cord under, under over and through and then over, over under, under continue until you've made 17 square knots. So one easy way to do that is each square knot has one little bump down the right hand side. You can just count when you have seventeen complete square knots. You'll have 17 little bumps there then you're going to flip your work around, tape the other side and do 17 knots exactly the same way on the other side so here I have my bracelet and I have 17 square knots on each side I've flipped my work around and on both sides you can see I do have a fair amount of cord leftover I always would rather have extra because you can't add more so the measurement of two and three foot segments is gonna give you a decent amount so you don't have to worry if you do want to add a few more you will have enough now I'm gonna finish the knot. So flip the bracelet over to the back side so that the back of your focal is facing up. When you open up your glue it has a foil sealing you just need to use the little point in the cap to puncture the seal go ahead and put some glue out on your scratch paper now I'm going to take the two side strings, leave the center strings along, you're going to actually use them to complete the clasp. We just wanna finish the side strings so we're just going to tie a knot with the side strings. Before you pull it tight use your fingers to open the knot up a little bit so that you can see between the two strands of the knot and then use a toothpick or a wire to put a little gob of E6000 into the knot and pull it tight this one is a little bit less important that you don't get glue everywhere. You don't wanna get all over but if it gets underneath or on the ends that's fine. If it gets down onto the macrame knotting below that's fine. Flip it over, I'm going to do the same thing with the other side take your two outside strands tie a knot, before it's all the way tight just want to spread the cords a little bit get some glue in there pull it tight. I got less glue on it this time that's a little bit more of what we're looking for. You wanna go ahead and let your glue set up, you really wanna and give it a good hour probably to make sure that it's not gonna go anywhere before you trim that In the meantime you can do your clasp. Take your center strand you want to overlap them to complete a circle with the bracelet you want them going past each other and having the bracelet in a complete circle with the center ends pointing away from each other now we're going to go back and take the one foot length of cord that cut at the beginning put the center of that cord behind our strands and just like we did before we're going to tie macrame square knot around the cords using this new piece so take the left side under you wanna make sure that you hold the center down take the right side under that, over the center through the loop and it's a little tricky to get that tight while holding the other strands in place but very doable pull it snug. You don't wanna pull it so tight that you can't move the other strands but you do want it to be snug so that it does stay tight and doesn't just loosen. Now we're going to finish the square knot so there's one. We're going to tie a total of three square knots with our new cord do try to keep these center stands straight, not getting twisted and not overlapping on each other. It just has a nicer finished look to it so there's my three square knots. 1, 2, 3 now I'm gonna finish that outside cords on my clasp just like I did the other ones. So go ahead and flip it around so that you have the backside I like to work with the ends at the top now we're gonna tie a knot. We're gonna put glue on this. In this one it is extremely important that you're really careful with your glue your glue can only touch the strands that your gluing these loose outside strands and maybe this macrame knot piece right here but if touch these center cords with your glue your bracelet will not slide to adjust so pull you're knot pretty tight without pulling it too snug. Just gonna get it down to where its gonna sit. If you need to get new glue If your glue has dried too much, get yourself some new glue mine is still fine in the middle. Just go in with a sparing amount and just get it on the cords that you're knotting and not below it and pull that snug you're gonna wanna let that really setup before you trim it. You wanna have all your glue set for about an hour before you trim just to be sure that you're not gonna have it unravel. So now we're going to trim our ends. Get our ruler I'm going to be measuring from the place where the knot end the macrame knotting and I want my ends to be about two and an half inches. Other easy way to make this bracelet bigger if you don't want to add more knotting is to simply make this piece longer and it will adjust to bigger so I'm going to just tie a regular overhand knot, making a loop and bringing the tail through the loop and then holding my strand up to the ruler I'm just going to tighten the knot and adjust at the same time so that I get the knot sitting right about two and a half inches then I'm going to make a knot on the other side the other strand on the same side rather and I want it to sit in the same place. So I'll just match it to that piece flip my work over this is another reason why you wanna make sure you don't use too much glue because if you do, you need to wait till it's totally dry before you move on as it is you can let your glue set up while you finish as long as it's not getting on everything while it's wet tie the knot. Move it and tighten it so that it's two and a half inches down from your square knotting. Tie a second knot and you can even line it up with that next one. Now I'm going to pull these knots really tight. The knotting cord is meant for knotting they will stay but you want to pull them really tight then we'll trim these close maybe about just less than an eighth of an inch something around an eighth of an inch from the knot and do both sides let your glue dry all the way and come back to it when it's totally dry. When you've let your glue dry you've let it set for about an hour, then we're going to go in and just trim our cords and you wanna trim close to the knot maybe about a sixteenth of an inch away from the knots. You want to trim all three and then to ensure that your knots are going to be nice and secure take a little bit more of your glue. Your just gonna go in very delicately and glue the space where the end of your tail comes out of the end of the knot. So just right over the very small tip that's still there and where it meets the knot. So right over the ends and that's gonna just secure that and do that on both sides and then on your sliding knot again you want to be very careful that you don't get your glue into the macrame knotting below, you just wanna do that end knot and the sides and you wanna go ahead and let all your glue dry really thoroughly before you wear it, before you slide it on to open and close all you do is hold on to your sliding knot and pull it apart, hold on to your sliding knot and pull on the ends to tighten. That's how you make a macrame bracelet with an arrow or a crystal encrusted infinity link. Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!
