Felt beads can be knotted onto a cord to make necklaces and bracelets. A double sliding knot allows for easy adjustment to the length of the cord.
In the previous blog post we showed how to do simple embroidery on felt beads. Shown below is a necklace, with a double sliding knot, made from those beads.
The beads are approx 2.5cm (1") diameter and felted until very firm.
To thread felt beads onto a cord, use a sharp needle - if you find it difficult to pull the needle through, use pliers.
Each bead is held in place with a knot, either side of the bead, in the cord. Make a single, tight knot in the cord where you want your first bead to be. When the first bead is against the first knot, make a single knot on the other side.
Insert tweezers through the single knot then hold the tweezers tightly on the cord against the bead.
Slowly tighten the knot, towards the bead, keeping the knot on the tweezers.
Hold on to the knot then remove the tweezers. Push the knot close to the felt bead.
Now make a knot further along the cord where you want the second felt bead to be.
Thread the second felt bead onto the cord then make a knot on the other side in the same way as before.
If you want an exact distance between knots, use tweezers to place the knot using a ruler as a guide.
IDEAS:
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Felt beads don't have to be evenly spaced on a cord and they can be threaded onto a cord with no spaces between them
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Glass, ceramic or metal beads could be included if the bead hole is large enough to be threaded onto the cord
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Beads can be expensive to buy new but you can get beads by breaking down jewellery bought from charity (thrift) shops
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Felt beads can be threaded onto beading thread so that you could incorporate small beads and metal clasps - shown below is a thread that looks and feels similar to poly/cotton thread but it's 100% nylon so it's very strong
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Magnetic clasps and lobster clasps can be obtained from recycled jewellery
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Charms from recycled jewellery look good with felt beads
- Felt beads can be threaded onto a metal choker
To demonstrate how to make a double sliding knot, we're going to use a faux necklace with the left and right sides of the cord in different colours - the left side is red and the right side is blue.
Of course, when you make your knots your cord will probably be one colour but we thought it easier to show and explain if we threaded the left side of the bead with red and the right side with blue.
Fingers get in the way when showing something small so we've substituted pins for fingers to hold the cords in place.
To make the first sliding knot, pass the end of the red cord under the blue cord (1)
Bring the red cord back over the top of the blue cord (2)
Take the red cord back under the blue cord to make a loop (3)
Repeat the same action until there are 3 loops (4+5)
Bring the end of the red cord to the first loop (6)
Thread the end of the red cord through the loops (7)
Carefully ease the loops together until they are tight (8)
The red knot will slide up and down the blue cord.
To make the second sliding knot, loop the blue cord under the red cord (1)
Take the blue cord back over the top of the red cord (2)
Then bring the blue cord back under the red cord to form a loop (3)
Repeat the same action until there are 3 loops (4+5)
Bring the end of the blue cord to the first loop (6)
Thread the end of the blue cord through the loops (7)
Carefully ease the loops together until they are tight (8)
The blue knot will slide up and down the red cord.
This is a double sliding knot ...
... the ends of the cords can be cropped or you could add beads to them.
To shorten the cord, grip the knots then pull them away from each other.
To lengthen the cord, grip the cord either side of the knots then pull so that the knots slide toward each other.