How to make a Sliding Knot – Summer Fun Necklace

Over the Northern Hemisphere summer I saw lots of jewellery made from seed beads.  Today, I’m not only making this cute choker necklace, I’m also showing you to how make a sliding knot with waxed cord. This is useful for all cord necklaces and bracelets.

Credit

I did not create this design.  The credit for this wonderful necklace goes to Wave Box.

Materials

Here’s what you will need make this wire wrapped bracelet:

• To make this necklace you will need:
• Waxed Polyester Cord x 1m
• 8/0 Baking Glass Seed Beads in the following colours and quantities. All seed beads can be found using this link.

Tools

• Scissors

Instructions

Watch the video or read the instructions below.

Threading the Beads

Thread the seed beads onto the cord following order laid out in the design below.  The basic pattern is:

• 6 White
• 1 Goldenrod
• 3 Colour
• 1 Goldenrod
• 3 White
• 1 Goldenrod
• 1 Colour
• 1 Goldenrod.

It can be useful to tie a knot in the other end so that the beads don’t fall off.  If you are having difficulty getting the beads onto the cord, twist the end of the cord between your thumb and forefinger to warm the wax. If this doesn’t work, trim off a smidge of the end.

Finishing the Ends

Hold the necklace up and measure around your head, holding the cord between your fingers where the necklace meets behind your head. I look like a hippie from the 60s!

Allow a little extra then cut the cord to length. You are aiming to have one long piece to cut off one side.

Thread one goldenrod bead onto one end of the cord and tie a knot right at the end of the cord. Move the goldenrod bead close to the knot and tie another knot on the other side of the bead. Trim off the end. Repeat for the other end of the cord.

Making the Slip Knot

Move the beads to the centre of the cord so that you have approximately an equal amount of cord on either side of the beads.

Lay the necklace out and cross the cord at the top.

Take the piece that you cut off and make a loop in one end.

Place that loop on top of the crossed cord.

Pick the whole thing up in your non-dominant hand, holding all of the cords together.

Pull out the long tail.

Loosely wrap the long tail from back to front around the other cords five times. It helps to place your thumb over each wrap as you do it to hold it all in place.  

Thread the long tail up through all five loops.

Now thread the tail through the large loop that you made at the beginning.

Place your thumb and forefinger over the loops.  Very gently, pull the long tail to close up the large loop.  

Don’t pull it all the way closed at this point.  Pull the tail on the other end and gently work until you have the knot tight and even.

Work the loops until they loop even, checking to ensure that everything still slides.

Keep working until the knot is even and loops good.

Trim off the Ends

The last thing to do is trim off the tails.  You could leave them if you wanted and add a bead to each end like we did for the other pieces.  If you do want to trim them off, tie a tiny, tight knot in each tail close to the sliding knot. Trim off the ends.

I could have worked this more to get my knots more even but I didn’t want to spend too much time on camera doing this.  Just work it until you are happy with it.  

Optional Extra Step

If you wished, you could carefully melt the ends after you’ve knotted them but be very careful not to melt the end into the slip knot, otherwise it won’t slip anymore.

Here’s your finished summer fun necklace.

If you would like to make the jewellery I'm wearing in the video, please check out the Tween Jewellery Set.

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