Rag Bracelet Tutorial

I made a little bracelet from some fabric scraps and wanted to share it so, here is a little tutorial.

Rag Bracelet

Take three strips about 12inches long mine are of shirt fabric.

Rather than cut the fabric rip it into strips for a nice rag edge.

Use a large dressmaking pin to secure the 3 ends together onto something solid, I used the wingback chair in my workshop, you could use the sofa arm or ironing board cover if its sturdy.

Braid the ends together making sure its quite tight. Keep going until you have the length you require mine is 6.5 inches long, I have quite a small wrist.

Machine or hand stitch to secure all three ends together and cut away excess end strips.

Sew a button over the edge covering the stitchline.

Stitch a loop of elastic cord, whichhas been knotted, securely to the other end.

Next embellish with a selection of small shirt buttons.

 Make sure the loop is not too tight or loose to go round the button at the other end and check that the bracelet is going to fit your wrist comfortably.

Next cut a small piece extra fabric and fold in the edges

Wrap the fabric round the cord end to cover the cord knot

Now your bracelet is ready to wear.

** This little tutorial is dedicated to my neice Bianca who died 1st April 2010.

All the shirt fabrics and buttons used were her's.**

Below are some other little things which I made along the same idea.

The bottom bracelet in the picture below uses the strip of fabric from a snap fasten shirt just leave them on the fabric and braid as normal you will find that they sit evenly along the braid.

I couldnt resist making a couple from my pink floral fabrics and added a couple of vintage buttons.

Sweet arnt they!

These are for sale in my Folksy shop

Below are a few hairbands I made. Cut the braid a longer length and stitch some wide elastic to the ends.

The top blue one below has daisies secured with tiny yellow glass seed beads.

The next one down, using a selection of Bianca's shirt fabrics and some more of the pink to make a rosette flower and two vintage buttons to secure to the band.

The bottom one takes advantage of the snap fasteners, I used pieces of fabric with the opposite ends of the fasteners stitched to the underside of the rosettes to just snap them on, they can be swapped around.

For sale in my Folksy shop

Below is a Rag charm bracelet. Made from a mix of black and white fabrics.

The fabrics for this piece were a bit wider creating a chunckier bracelet.

Embellishments of ribbons, glass beads and vintage buttons carry the black and white theme but I couldn't resist adding a little bit of colour.

There is even one of my handmade snowstorm focal beads in there

A little lace flower was stitched to the large fabric covered closure button.

This Rag Charm Bracelet is now for sale in my FOLKSY shop

I quite enjoyed playing around with this technique, it's not new, rags have been used for many years to make new clothing, rugs, bags and bowls. I just thought I would play around make a little memeory bracelet and a few other ideas sprung to mind which Im happy to share......

I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial.

If you have been inspired to make a little rag bracelet, rag charm bracelet or rag hairband I would love to see it. If you post a picture to you blog it would be nice to link it back to the tutorial that inspired you to make it.

Thank you for reading my post,

Yvonne x