How to: Turk's Head Knot Bracelet

 Summer is approaching which mean time on the beach, by the pool or out in the water. Nautical themed items are flooding the stores. One of my favorite items for summer is a Turk's Head Knot Bracelet or more commonly called a Sailor's Knot Bracelet.

What you need
• 3.5 yards of twine/cotton twine/rope whatever you like
• 14 oz. can for a smaller bracelet or a 20 ounce can for a larger bracelet. Really any round object to match the circumference of your wrist will do. *NOTE: For this tutorial I used my Nalgene bottle obviously it's too big for my wrist I just wanted to make sure you could see what I was doing.

1. Wrap one end of the twine around your round object to shape an X. Leave about a 4" tail. You will need this at the end to finish the bracelet.

 

 2. Wrap the long end of the twine around your round object again and bring it up to the middle of the X.

3. Pass the long end of the twine under the right, upper leg of the X and pull the long end all the way through.

4. Next move the upper left leg of the X over the right leg of the X to create an oval shape.

5. Pull the long end of the twine through the oval shaped opening you just set up.

6. Turn your round object just a tiny bit and you will now see that the oval shape has created another x shape. Again, pass the long end of the twine under the right upper leg of the X and pull the end through.

7. Repeat steps 3-6 until you make it back to the beginning.

 

8. You will now  see that you have a three stranded braid. Create a parallel second line by following the twine you originally laid out, and continue around your round object. You may need to use tweezers to pull your twine through. Also I recommend taking it off of your round object when working to finish this. It will make the bracelet easier to work with.

 9. You are continuing to knot the twine or rope around the bracelet until each strand of the braid has at least one parallel line. It took me a total of three time around to make this happen. At this point if you would like to create the traditional Turk's Head Knot you will need to do another three passes so that you will have three parallel lines. To finish off just knot the ends together and weave the extra twine or rope into your bracelet.