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I've recently picked up making friendship bracelets again and am trying to find tidy methods of narrowing down to smaller strings (less threads) to braid and tie off. I find that if I include the 16 strings I've made the bracelet with its too thick to tie together. Thanks.

Do you make one or two braids at the end? If you make two braids, then each one only has 8 strings in it.

You can also use the technique in the (( Closures )) Rope Braid - Start & End your Bracelet tutorial either as the main braid, or to construct the individual plies of a larger braid. If you put a lot of twist into the strings they stay pretty narrow.

With 8 strings I usually use the rope braiding on pairs of strings (i.e. spin single strings one direction and then wrap the two strings together in the other direction) to make 4 plies and then do a 4-ply braid with the 4 pairs of strings. You then repeat the process with the other 8 strings from the other side of the bracelet.

If you really want to reduce the number of strings you end up with, then experiment with the shaping technique: (( Closures )) How to make a V-shaped ending. The shaping secures the strings, so they don't come loose and it is not as noticeable that they do not all appear in the braid.

I've tried both one & two braids plus sub-braids & twists, as a hairdresser I can get them really tight but I prefer having one end to tie off & then the knot gets bulky. I'll try dropping off some with the v shaped ending thanks :)

Almost all of my recent bracelets have the shaped endings, combined with leaving strings out of the shaped edges on the backside. I usually do that on the inside, around the hole/loop. I then knot these strings together, also like the shaping method. This can also be done on the outside edges. You can just cut and glue the strings instead of the knotting on the backside, I just prefer less glue :-)

The backside will look like this when you do the knotting:

That's a great idea thank you :)

Kleinevos, how do u make the ending into one black string ? Did you cut other colors strings off?

I have several different ways for endings. I always try to end up with 6 or 8 strings for the braids, the other strings are cut of after securing them. It depends on the type of ending how I secure them.