How to Do Craft Lace
Plastic woven lanyards have been around for many years, becoming popular as an easy craft for children and at summer camps. Everyone enjoys the seemingly endless color combinations and many different pattern results. Craft Lace is a flat plastic lace made of PVC that has some elasticity to it as you bend and pull, making it fantastic for weaving. This material is a standard in many craft stores and goes by quite a few other names including plastic lace, gimp, boondoggle and RexLace.
Instructions
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1
Cut lengths from the two colors of lace that you have chosen. To practice a basic square stitch, these should be around 1 foot long, which will result in about 6 inches of finished Craft Lace lanyard.
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Match up the ends of the strips and fold the lengths in half meeting all four ends. Find the middle by following the lengths to where it forms a loop; the center of this loop is the center of your strip.
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3
Release the open ends while holding the centers. Cross the centers and hold them steady with one thumb giving you four strands. Although the strands and their directions will change, think of each strand as a direction; top, right, bottom, left.
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4
Start with the right strand and fold it up and over the cross leaving a small loop. Repeat the fold with the left side, resulting in two parallel loops. Be careful not to leave a large loose loop because it can be difficult to manage. Since this is a square knot, there are four sides and the color that you start with will not matter.
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5
Weave the top loop over the left loop and under the right loop to the same tension. Repeat with the bottom loop, going over the right loop and under the left loop.
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6
Remove your thumb being careful not to pull the strands apart. Holding two ends in each hand pull tight creating a flat square weave. This is the base stitch of your lanyard craft; repeating the knots will become easier as it grows. Pulling extra tight is not necessary but is often done to ensure the same tension and aid the lace into molding quickly. Repeat the above steps until you achieve the desired length.
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7
Finish off the project by doing a last square stitch, leaving it semi loose. Take any strand and go around the post, or bottom, of the strand to its left, inserting the end up and out of the middle of the stitch. Repeat this with each strand until all four strands are sticking out the middle of the stitch.
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Slowly tighten by pulling the ends while holding the craft in the other hand. It can be helpful to use your thumb on the finishing knot while pulling to make sure all the gaps are closing properly. At this point, you can snip off the ends leaving a short tassel, or wait at least a day so the plastic has time to set in the new position, and snip the ends closer to the knot.
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Tips & Warnings
Show off your project by using it as a key chain or zipper pull.
