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Hello bracelet makers! I'm having a bit of a problem with the bracelet I'm currently making, pattern #108629. Some of the colors got used up way faster than I was expecting, so I'm trying to find a way to finish my bracelet with the strings I have left that won't just result in having really long ties.

Here's a picture of what I have so far: (I hope this link works)



In order to get the bracelet long enough to fit around my wrist, I need to get it to the length of the center pink string, which is just under 2.5 inches aka just over 6.5cm, before I can start making my ties.

Now, I have an idea about how to not use up the short colors and keep the other ones from getting too bad. An old teacher of mine had a bracelet in her collection that looked like this:



Which as you might be able to tell (if I did this right), has part of the bracelet break up into those yellow strands that are technically separate from the rest, and then rejoin later. I think doing something like that with the greens and the bi colors should get those parts long enough for me to work with, but does someone with more experience have any thoughts on this idea or similar ideas?

And finally, all of my monochrome strands are still really long, so I would like to do some sort of pattern with them once I get them all brought to the center. Does anyone have any suggestions for patterns that I could make out of the monochrome ones that would still look like they go with the rest of the pattern?

p.s. I know that there are techniques for adding more string if you run out, but sadly my string stash is all in another state for the next few months and there are no crafting stores in my area. I tried looking into that first.

Since it looks like the photos aren't showing, you should be able to see the bracelets here.

I'm a bit confused about "In order to get the bracelet long enough to fit around my wrist, I need to get it to the length of the center pink string". Do you mean the knotted part of the pink string or the one that is still loose?

I'm not sure continuing to knot so that the bracelet is split will save a lot of string.

My recommendation might be a little obvious, but I recommend to freestyle the rest of the pattern a bit and make as many knots with the monochrome strings as possible - so whenever there is a knot between a coloured string and a monochrome string, you make a knot of the colour of the monochrome string.

You can of course combine splitting the bracelet and making monochrome knots when possible. When doing so, I recommend keeping your shortest strings (pink and light green) in the edges of the parts and only making bf or fb knots onto them like you were doing the straight edges technique. I think this way these strings get used up the least.

Thanks for taking the time to reply halokiwi!

If it was the knotted part, I would just finish off the bracelet as I have it now and call it good enough, but I meant until the end of the string, which should be visible towards the bottom center of the picture.

It would probably save me string to split it up rather than try to incorporate the strings into the pattern as you've suggested for one small reason: horizontal movement. By freestyling as you suggest the short strings would move diagonally a lot, even just to get them to the edges, which would eat up more string. Meanwhile if I split them up with a technique similar to the other picture in the file, I could make columns of just the colors and keep the shortest strings in the center, thus keeping them from being used hardly at all. Think of it like how the center strings in a Chinese staircase last longer than the ones used to circle the outside.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as rude by dismissing your ideas, I've been thinking of what I could do a lot even just since posting this and feel like I'm just going in circles at this point.

I'm also quite a bit hesitant to just freestyle it because I really want this bracelet to look nice despite the setbacks, it's my Pride bracelet after all, and my bracelets always become a mess if I don't plan them out really carefully in advance. So just winging it is a bit of a no-go, sorry.

Thank you for taking the time to leave your suggestions, but I'm afraid they aren't really what I'm looking to do with this particular bracelet.

If you split the bracelet in the middle, the way for the shortest strings to the edges is very short or they are already there. If you then do the straight edges technique and use these strings as the edge strings, the strings will get used up the slowest in my opinion. I believe that the edge string in the straight edges technique is the string that gets used up the least because you only make knots onto it and unlike any other string it moves perpendicular instead of diagonally.

If you want, I can try to design a pattern how I would imagine the bracelet to continue :)

I think your best bet would probably be to wait until you can access the string to make the strings longer. I don't think there is a way to continue this in a way that looks "perfect" in any other way.

I'm not sure if this helps, but here is how I imagined it:



Row 18 to 21 show how you could save up the coloured strings, if you split the bracelet in the middle. The pattern only shows the left half, the right half would be mirrored.

Rows 1 to 17 are how you would get into the pattern from where you are now in your bracelet.

The rows at the end of the pattern show, how you would return back to the original pattern, but they are just there so the strings in the pattern match

I read through your first two messages and was about to decline your offer to make a design, but I see that you've already made one.

While this is a wonderful standalone bracelet (And it's so impressive that you managed to make it so fast! You must do a lot of pattern designing!) and would technically work in terms of just continuing the bracelet to get the necessary length, it is just not what I'm looking for in the sense of working with the pattern that I already have going to make it visually integrated.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to help so far, but I think our ideas on how to finish this bracelet are rather opposed to each other. I'll just do the best I can leading up to Pride month with the strings I have available and the patterns on this site, and hope for the best.

I know, you probably have enough of me replying :) but I feel really inspired to design a pattern. I made two more attempts. Maybe one of those is closer to what you imagined.

It might seem like I did, but I do actually really enjoy seeing your replies! Stressed-early-morning me really comes across rather harshly or dismissively most of the time, and I don't mean to!

How you keep coming up with such pretty patterns is beyond me, seriously. The first one feels like a surreal mountain range, and the last one actually has some elements of what I was considering for the monochrome, I might have to take a look at that later!

I was thinking during class earlier, and came up with something that I would like your opinion on! I incorporated your suggestion of putting the short string at the edge with a bunch of fw/bw knots, and combined it with the shaped bracelet technique. Here's an idea of what I was thinking!



(Hope the picture worked this time.)

This would be a strategy to use with the greens too, meanwhile the monochrome strands would do their own thing in between! Then I'd just finagle them to all join back up later just before I would start the ties.