Spoiler alert: yes.
By that I mean: there’s a robust community of people who make amazingly intricate patterns and share photos and challenge each other…. It is a bonafide social crafty hobby for adults here in 2022. I had no idea.
Now, necessary disclaimer: I’m just getting into this world, so I might misspeak or leave out important details I should know. But I wanted to let y’all in on the secret.
First things first: I’ve been using this website to find patterns and dip my toe into the social stuff. It’s called Bracelet Book and the kicker is that it’s not even the only community like it. I can’t speak for the other ones, but this one has an incredible number of patterns posted, complete with variations and tutorials and photos/videos and a forum, etc etc.
Maybe you can tell I’m excited because I’m less articulate. 🙂
If you have any interest in time-consuming but satisfying crafts like cross stitch/embroidery, quilting, diamond painting, coloring, or anything along those lines, you should seriously check this out.
It is easier than it looks, trust me. When you boil it down, you’re really only doing one (1) knot, but in four different orientations. You get so much variation just from one knot. We’re talking tens of thousands of designs, and that’s not counting the variations.
I would like to explain the finer details of how to get started, but for now, this is just for encouragement and inspiration.
Let me show you what I’ve made so far:
The one on the far right (#117860) is the first one I ever did. It’s a little bit “messed up” in that it’s thinner than it should be, but otherwise, you can see I was able to pretty much jump right in with something cool. It’s thinner because I only used 2 strands of floss for each string, and people typically use all 6 (as I did in the other two pictures).
As far as materials, you only really need to get your hands on a bunch of embroidery floss and some way to anchor the bracelet as you work. I like to use a clipboard, but you can also tie one end around something or tape it down to a flat surface.
I would also recommend figuring out a method of keeping track of what row you’re on in your pattern. I use a pen cap that I just slide up and down the side of the page to point to my last finished row.
You should have no problem finding patterns, though. And learning to interpret them doesn’t take long at all.
Honestly, some of my favorite hobbies are those that are easy to begin, but difficult to “master.” Making friendship bracelets seems like it’ll fit right in with those hobbies.
If you try this out or have any tips, feel free to let me know! I’d love to know how to better predict how much floss I need for a given pattern, for one. My profile on Bracelet Book is here if you’d like to be friendship bracelet… friends. 🙂
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you soon!
Making Stuff Today 