(( How to... )) Tip: Keeping Your Long Strings Neat
When you are making a bracelet at the start, the strings might be quite long making it difficult to knot. Or they keep jumbling up or changing order.Simply take the end of a string, wrap it around your finger several times, slip it off your finger, then knot the bundle of string neatly to keep it from unwrapping.
Do that for all the strings. Now work on your bracelet and when a string becomes short you can unwrap it gradually as you need.
It's very simple but I hope it was a useful tip for beginners!
Sometimes the sheer NUMBER of bundled up strings poses a problem though. Suppose you're doing a 40-string bracelet and at some point find yourself spending more time with untangling than knotting, as good as the above mentioned method may be.
The root of all evil seems to be found in at least 7 factors: The working part of your strings still has to have a CERTAIN LENGTH, like it or not. GRAVITY plus the TWIST your strings have been given at the factory may all conspire in producing severe situations of entanglement, especially when you're talking about a CONSIDERABLE NUMBER OF STRINGS so CLOSE TOGETHER. Working too FAST, possibly withthreads you have SPLIT IN HALVE, can also be aggravating factors that will produce kinks and snags.
You can avoid this predicament by using the LAPTOP/TABLETOP METHOD as I call it:
Work at a table in front of your laptop.
View the hefty oversize pattern you'd like to do on your laptop with the screen zoom set to about 200 per cent.
Tape down the 40 or so already bundled up strings of your bracelet (as described above) towards the edge of the table.
Now go and FAN OUT all your strings in an ORDERLY FASHION and HANG THEM OVER THE UPPER EDGE OF YOUR LAPTOP' S SCREEN!
Just pick the 2 strings needed now for the next knot in your pattern.
Do the knot and lay out the 2 strings you have just used towards the left of your tabletop, letting them dangle down the left edge of your table.
Grab for the next 2 strings in your fan that will become active.
Do the knot.
Put the 2 old strings that had been used before back in the fan of strings spanning over your laptop.
Place the 2 newer strings to the left so you always know exactly what has been your last knot.
Fumble for the next 2 strings in the fan becoming active, etc., etc.
I've found that this method saves you a lot of time and nerves.
The beauty of it is that you can put your computer to good use in a twofold way:
as a tool for showing you the large pattern you're working on (albeit through a veil of strings)
and as a contraption to help keep your strings separated, clearly arranged and thus unjumbled and carefree.
Editors
The original author of this tutorial is hendhuhe .
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