senephia on How to Make a Hemp Bracelet

thick, almost like tiny sisal rope. So I used what was lurking in my tool kit instead--if the article is right it might be hemp, but there’s a chance it’s actually jute, another plant fiber. I like how the jute feels against my skin a lot more than the hemp, and after all, there’s no point in making the bracelet if I’m not going to wear it, right?

The first thing I did was make a simple flat bracelet by knotting on alternating sides as I worked down the hemp--jute--whatever--strands. When I did friendship bracelets in high school we taped them to the edges of tables or desks, but I picked up the idea of clipping them onto a clipboard instead from another eHow article, and this worked great from the twine, also.

I quickly found that I needed an extra set of hands to hold the middle strands taut as I worked around them. The article picture shows someone managing this with just two hands, but I found it a lot easier to just grasp the middle strands in my teeth and hold them taut. This kept them from bunching up between knots, and let me free to work the outer strands back and forth in nice, big loops without trying to keep them all contained in just one hand.

I liked how the flat bracelet turned out. The article suggests using beads, and I’d love to see how they look on the rustic twine bracelet, but I had some major trouble finding beads with a large enough hole to be threaded onto the twine I was using. I went back and checked out the hemp in the craft store again. Too thick also.

I ended up with some mother-of-pearl discs that hang from a tiny metal loop--about the perfect size for threading onto the bracelet as I worked. This time I made a spiral bracelet, thinking it would look nicer with the beads.

The only real problem with putting dangling beads on the spiral is that if you don’t space them exactly right, they will poke out from the bracelet at different points around the spiral. Having your beads “dangling” in all directions definitely takes away some of the charm. I thought I’d gotten the hang of it, tying seven knots between each bead, but it turns out that I should have added a few more.

I used a 70-inch length of twine for my short strand and a 144-inch strand for the long strand, then doubled them as per the instructions. This left plenty of twine to make an 8-inch bracelet in either style and still have a little left over.

I’m glad I did this project, but I’m not too thrilled with the twine I used once all is said and done. I think I’ll try the same knots with embroidery thread and see how they turn out.