Soft statement bracelets- crochet and fabric tutorial

These bracelets are one of my new favorite projects. I like crocheted bracelets, Spoonflower fabric, and quotes.

The fabrics for these bracelets is available here- Bracelet Swatch Fabrics, a swatch is 5.00 USD and will make 5 bracelets, or you can use some of it as appliques. I'll be adding more quotes as time goes on. These are too much fun.

The first part is making your very own fabric.

You'll need a graphics program, a quote and an idea for how you want it to look. Remember that making it too busy makes it hard to read the quote. I love my 1st Amendment bracelet, but it's a lot of text on a rainbow background and very busy. Using a soft stroke outline on the text helps it stand out a bit.

Open an image 8 inches wide and 1.6 inches tall at 150 ppi minimum. Lay out your background and text, but remember it has to fit your wrist, so 6 inches wide and 1 inch tall for the text works well. Add graphics if you want, keeping them within the borders of what will fit your wrist when it's stitched into place.

Upload your design to Spoonflower. Set it up so the ppi matches the ppi of your design. Order a swatch. I used their woven cotton.

OR!! You can get really crafty and embroider your statement on fabric!

To make the bracelet:

You will need

• yarn
• appropriate sized hook
• button or buttons
• needle to weave in ends
• fabric
• pinking shears
• embroidery floss
• tapestry needle

Pick a yarn.

 This is Darn Good Yarn Lace Weight Silk Yarn in Exotic Rainbow. It's gorgeous with really short color changes so it's very colorful even on small scale projects. The hand is very soft.

This is a basic size 3 crochet cotton thread. More structure than the silk, and it's a heavier weight so it works up quicker.

Yes, you can use worsted weight, that will be chunkier, but that's a neat look too.

Both bracelets are made close to the same way. Chain approximately 1.5 inches, single crochet a few rows, then you make your button hole. The button hole is made by figuring how big the button you're using is, and how many stitches across that is, then you subtract that number from the number in your base row, and divide that number by 2. sc that many stitches, chain the number of stitches for your hole, skip those stitches, and then sc to the end. So for the cotton bracelet, it was 8 stitches wide, and my button would fit into a 4 stitch hole.
8-4=4
4/2=2
Sc in first 2 stitches, chain 4, skip 4 stitch, sc in last 2 stitches, turn.

Then continue working back and forth until it's long enough to fit around your wrist with a 1 inch overlap. Break off, weave in ends.

For the silk, I used a size 0 steel hook and 11 stitches. For the cotton, I used a size D hook and 8 stitches.

The fabric needs to be washed, but because it's just a very small piece, I hand washed it and laid it flat to dry. Use the pinking shears to cut the strip and cut off the ends to fit on your bracelet. Press the fabric. Again, tiny piece. Rather than set up an ironing board and iron, I just used my daughter's hair straightening iron!

Stitch the strip into place. I used a running stitch. Starting it, I made a knot at the end of the thread with a few inches tail. Pulled it up through the fabric alone, then went down into both the fabric and the crocheted bracelet, then stitched around the entire patch. When I got to the end, I tied the thread off to the tail in a firm knot, then buried the ends in the crochet.

The button on the 1st Amendment bracelet is one from my mom's button box. The buttons on the Nevertheless bracelet are stacked inexpensive plastic buttons because I love how the colors pop that way.

The No Censorship pinback is from the early 90s. My family was advocating against a local measure and I still have several of them.