Hey~~~ It's May! And this is my first blog for the month UwU
I know I've gone MIA again, but juggling a 12 hour shift while training new hires really doesn't leave me with enough energy by the end of my day. These are some of the things I hate during the mining season here. The work hours just get crazy.
Going back to what I wanted to write about... Well, I tried doing some old crafts I used to be obsessed with back in highschool. And that would be making woven bracelets. It's an old craft from my mom's side of the family whose origins are still a question to me. But I did try to do some googling and found that these woven bracelets are actually called friendship bracelets and wishing bracelets in some places. I'm not entirely sure which country it really originated from, but a lot of my searches point to south America and it got popularized over the years.
I do remember kids my age making these bracelets wwith nylons and beads and those weird loom bands, but what I couldn't understand was why string weaving wasn't all that popular. WWas it because it tangles up so fast? I honestly don't mind the tangles much because you get to knot the most fascinating and intricate patterns on it and you can incorporate beads and charms as well, but that's on more complex patterns. Right now, I'm trying to relearn old patterns which are mostly diagonals.
So this was what I was workin on last sunday, while recovering from lack of sleep. As you can see, I have a book here on the basic patterns. This actually came from my mom and she took really good care of it because I remember that she had a time where she was obsessed with making these bracelets, and me and my sisters just kind of grew up with that for a few years so we adapted the craft.
For this craft, you'll only need a safety pin to keep your bracelet/band in place then crochet thread or mercerized yarn. The more tightly bound it is the better and the cleaner your bracelet will look.
These are the balls of yarn I currently have. And I am very proud of my finished product, yes. Mainly because I didn't expect my fingers to still remember how to make these. I actually picked this up again on a whim and out of convenience since I have some waiting time throughout my work day, but it is never long enough to allow me to sketch, so I thought maybe I could weave again since one layer only takes me 3-5 minutes, depending on how wide I want my bracelet to be.
So for this first bracelet I tried it with, I used 16 meters, so that's 16 strands to weave and a 4 row diagonal streak per color since I really wanted to go back to the basics with my first attempt.
So this is where and how it looked like when I started it. The strings look more organized once you've weaved them all in rows like that. it didn't come to mind to take a video of how to weave so maybe I'll save that for another blog about my relearning journey.
So this is while I was almost done with it and I was showing it off to my mom because I was really happy that my hands still remembered how to weave
Then that's how the bracelet looks like when it's done and when it's on my wrist. Please take note that I have a small wrist so it's a little lose on me.
Then the next day, I tried making another one but witha little bit more complexity. I went for the arrow design my mom loved so much, simply because it's still extremely easy but it looks so good when it's worn.
See how cute it is so far? I gave it bumblebee colors because it was one of the most natural color combinations I have UwU
Next on my list though, I want to make this heart pattern I found on my pinterest because apparently, pinterest is stalking me again, but I'm not complaining.
Hopefully this blog booms so I can use the funds to buy more yarn colors and beads XD
Okay, kidding aside, I do plan to buy more yarn no matter what XD Hopefully I can get a red, green, violet and a dark blue one soon because I think those would allow me more color combinations. Thnk you for reading guys~~!!!