Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!
Hi! This is Megan with Beadaholique.com and I'm going to show you
how to make a
wide or a double
cobra paracord bracelet
As you can see
if you're familiar with what the basic cobra looks like, this is just
two of those side by side
and they only have one cord
down the center. So they are a little thinner
so
for this
braid I'm going to use a wider
plastic buckle. I'm using a one-inch wide buckle
and
I'm going to make this
for a man and so I made it
longer. A standard man's bracelet is eight inches
that's standard
wrist measurement, so I went ahead and
figured my buckle length
on these one-inch buckles is about two and a half to two and three quarters of
an inch
it's kinda hard to measure with the curve
so you're going to take your wrist measurement and add an inch
because it's thick so you need a little bit of extra room
set if you have an eight inch wrist, you want a nine-inch bracelet
but then you're going to take
the buckle measurement out of that
so instead of
having
nine inches of braid
you're gonna have nine minus two and three quarter which is about six and a
quarter
it's a little bit math to figure out exactly
how long
you want your braid to be
you can also try just trying it on
when you get to that point
I'm going to
go ahead and
use about eight feet of
one color and
two eight feet of the other color
on this example I used two lengths of the camouflage and one length of the
black
so I'm going to do another one now that has
two lengths of black and one length of grey
that general of thumb is to use about
a foot of paracord
on each strand for each inch of braiding
I like to
to go a little bit more than that. I like to use about a foot for each inch of
bracelet you want
I'm doing eight feet
I've found that even if you have a little bit leftover it's better than
running out
so go ahead and find
the middle of
all three of your lengths
these buckles have
the man end has a double loop
it doesn't have one it has two
in order to get the knots to sit nicely underneath
you want to make sure that you have the
part where the lark's head knot crosses over
facing away from the buckle
I'm going to go ahead and
knot these all onto here with the lark's head knot separately so
grab one of
the cords which ever one you have two colors of and bring it through the top
opening up from underneath
if you can't quite get it through you can use
chain nose pliers
and then pull the loop
back down
through the lower opening
pull the end through
to create a lark's head knot
next your gonna put in
the string that you have just one half
whatever your complimentary color is
just pull it
up through the
top opening
back down
tie the lark's head knot
pull these
nice since snug
you need to make room for a third strand in there
push these
down
make some room
put
your last
cord
into the space
just like before
you're gonna bring it back down
and make a lark's head knot
give these all
a nice pull, make them really tight
they should just sit back underneath
the bar here on the buckle
so once you have your
three cords
knotted into
all six lengths coming out here
you're going to split the center
grey cord
and have that go off onto the right group
and that go off to the left group
do
two knots here
the macrame square knot
is what you use to do the cobra pattern
and
we have a video
actually on shambhala bracelets but its
just to show macrame square knotting so
it's the shambhala bracelet
part one macrame square knotting
if you're not familiar with square knots it's good to get that down
so first we're going to
take our left cord
and go over the center cord
take the grey cord
and pull it
over that left cord
under the middle and up through the loop
go to your right group and you're going to
mirror that. Take your
left cord
underneath
bring the right cord under the grey cord
over the middle
and down through
and now you can see here that your
black cords are
wanting to cross already
so that's fine
we want them to cross, that's how you're going to keep your two
braids together instead of being separate
so I'm gonna bring the left cord over the top of the right cord and you want to
keep that consistent
as you work
so that you have a nice even
consistent
little group of crossovers at the back
to the left
going to take
the grey cord under the center
the black cord under the grey
over the center
down through the loop
take the black cord over the center
the grey over
under and through
and now I'm just going to finish those square knots and that will give me
since I don't
cross these over again I'm just gonna do
every other knot will cross over
basically when it's a
black cord in the center they will cross, when it's grey cord in the center
they will not and that will give you a nice
double line all the way down the middle
for the
left hand knot
continue with your
square knots which means you alternate
which cord
is on top
so that it doesn't twist
the right one goes under
take the left
of the center cord and take it over to the right
take your cord
under the center
under over and through
and this side
over the center
over under and through
since I have
grey in the center I'm going to keep
them on the same side. I'm not going to cross them
on the left side I'm going to take the left cord over
under and through
your second
knot I'm going to start with under
now you have your
black cord in the center
you are going to cross them over and take the left over the right
continue to knot
this way
you can see
when you get a few done
if you have two nice
cobra braids
side by side, on the back you can see
the little excess on the black
cords crossover and that's what keeps it together
so you're going to go ahead and
the number that you figured out in the beginning for how many inches you need
you're knotting to be
you're going to go
finish that
for my purposes I need it to be
six and a quarter to make a bracelet for standard
men's eight inch wrist
I'm just gonna finish that up
you go ahead and braid
almost as much as you want your full length to be
so I am leaving myself about an inch and a half at the bottom here
I'm trying to replicate this size here
this is about six and a half inches of braiding
and so you can see here that
I've stopped about an inch and a half left
what we need to do is attach
your second
half of the clasp
and the reason you don't do this at the beginning like you do with a lot of other paracord
bracelets because it's easier
to do this kind of knotting
without the ends attached because you have to
weave through the middle
so
just take
our center cord
put it through here
right down the center
go and flip the whole thing over
and give yourself
enough slack for the rest of the braid
that you need. If you need another inch and a half of braid
go ahead and give yourself another inch and a half
If you have a ruler or
something else, I'm just going to go ahead and mine up to this time one because
that's
the length that I want
and then next you're going to cut
the center cords
right about at where your braiding stops
and we're going to fuse these ends onto the cord here
and we wanna do it up a little further so that there is room for them to get it
knotted over which is what makes that
bond nice and strong
it is a little tricky to fuse the cord to itself
we're going to just go ahead and start with
one side first
and cutting it to that length gives you a good
way to check and make sure that you're holding it in the right spot
when you melt it you are gonna lose a little bit of length off of it though though
so once you've got in the right place right make sure you
don't move it around too much
again you're gonna want to use just a cheap plastic lighter. You don't want one with
shrink wrap on the sides and you make sure that you're not
going to be sad if it gets wrecked
push it down
onto
itself
with the side of the lighter, just be careful that will burn you like crazy, it's
very hot
and if it doesn't stick the first time
that's alright, one way that's helpful is
to try to go ahead and
not have your finger right there
melt this side a little bit, that can be helpful
don't melt all the way through it or else you won't have cord to knot on
what's really going to hold it is the knotting that goes over the top
so as long as you can keep it in place
it's probably good enough
so once you have
that side fused, go ahead and repeat that on the other side
and make sure that you keep it even if you don't have it
crooked
the buckle won't sit
straight
so
and we're going to go ahead and flip
our work back over it
and you're going to continue
you're knotting
right over your stands which is doubled up as they are
just like before you're going to
do your knotting but you need to now pull
strands
between here
which is why we waited until we're closer to the end
so once you've done the rest of this knotting it should be pretty easy to do
this part even though
technically it gets a little bit more difficult but
you should
understand that the way it works well enough to not get confused by
having those attached right there
crossover
so I think there's room for about one more
right in here is where it can get really tricky
and you can move
you're knots up and down a little bit. What you're doing is separating them or
compacting
so if it seems like it's not going to fit
another whole knot there, you can more it up and down
the more you push them up the
more
sturdy it's gonna be
but if you want to show an interesting color or something
like that you can also pull them down
I'm going to try and fit one more in there
and now I'm going to pull
these center strands both to the back
because it's hard to fuse down the middle without
hitting the rest of your strands
let's go ahead and pull those center strings both to the back
and we'll go ahead and fuse the ends on the outside first
said just like with the standard
cobra bracelet
it's pretty much like most paracord bracelets
snip
the ends right off
leave yourself
a little bit about maybe between an eighth of an inch and a quarter of an inch
somewhere in there
take your lighter
and at the end
and all that extra that you left yourself go ahead and
wait for that to get all melty, you can see it happen
when it's really
good looking, take the side of the lighter
squish it on there
if it's messy that's not a big deal
clip it with scissors
or
flush cutters and
trim them off
you do want
to spread out
that's gonna keep it from popping back through
if it's
scratchy or uneven you can
melt it a little bit
smooth that
do that for both
on the outside ends
if you hold it in place while it cools
I found that
it gives you a little bit of smoother end
now we just need to finish off
these back pieces here
and just the same way trim it down
and then try to angle the buckle away. You don't want to melt the buckle
try not to hit a lot of the other
cord. Try to just melt it right
where your ends are. This is tricky
this is a tricky thing to do
it's okay if you get a little bit of the cords
it's really hard to show you the angle right
just
try to get the
two ends fused
see you get a little bit
on here too
this is backside of the bracelet, the important part is not to go all the way
through
and weaken your cords and also to make sure that you really get a good nice
fuse on there. So those aren't going anywhere
it doesn't show on the frontside
you can see
that's all done
that's how you make a wide or double paracord bracelet.