DIY: Woven Chain Bracelet

This week has been very exciting. I started working on a cool DIY based on Miu Miu’s bird collar from a couple seasons ago (which is still happening, eventually) when I fell off a ladder and broke my wrist, putting any complicated projects on hold. I jokingly told a few people my next post would be about how to accessorize with a cast but it turns out that there’s not a lot you can do to make it look stylish. Instead I ended up making something that works better on the other arm. All the time I had to spend just hanging out without much to do put me in a bored-at-summer-camp mood (even though I never went to summer camp), which reminded me that there’s some beautiful friendship-bracelet-for-grown-ups jewelry out there. Aurelie

Bidermann’s Do Brazil bracelets are gorgeous and would be well worth the money, but it’s also easy enough to make your own at home to break up the winter doldrums.

You probably have, or can easily find, everything you need already: some thickish chain of your choice (cut two lengths long enough to fit around your wrist), different colors of embroidery thread (you’re probably going to want to use six strands twice the length of the chain) or plastic lanyard, and some scissors.

Lay your chain side by side and tie the embroidery floss to the first chain, leaving a little extra on the end. This will keep all your hard work from unraveling. From there, weave the floss through the top and bottom chain links so they are connected in the middle. It doesn’t matter what direction you start from, but if you begin by weaving the floss from front of the top link to the back of the bottom link, or vice versa, keep it consistent. This will ensure that all your first round of “stitches” are all going the same way. When you reach the end of the bracelet tie the strands to the final chain and cut off the extra.

For the second round just reverse the way you wove the thread the first time so it forms an “X”. Tie this off at the opposite end and you’re finished! Or you can weave some thread around the outside too, like I did on mine. If you want you can add a toggle to fasten the bracelet or stay true to friendship bracelet style by just tying the ends together. This would also look great if you wanted to try it with leather chord or ribbon like this one. The bracelet-making world is your oyster- just make sure to make some for your friends.