Today students learnt how to make a spiral and candy cane stripe friendship bracelet. We listened to music and shared great conversations while working on our bracelets. The final results looked beautiful, and no two pieces looked exactly the same.
What are friendship bracelets
Friendship bracelets are decorative bracelets normally gifted from the maker to a friend. It is symbolic of a friendship that will be great and everlasting. They are commonly handmade with cotton embroidery floss or wool thread and embellished with charms, beads and other trinkets. There are several styles and patterns, but most are created with the half-hitch knot.
The history of friendship bracelets
The true origin of friendship bracelets is hard to decode. Some believe they date back to ancient China (481-221 BC), others claim the friendship bracelet originated in Central America and some think it began with the Native American practice of exchanging bracelets.
Historian and Jeweller Erica Weiner has theorised that it stems from 1600-1800 mourning jewellery. Mourning jewellery was made with strands of loved one’s hair:
“You’d cut a piece of your hair and have a specialist weave it into elaborate patterns within a ring or bracelet,”
“Before photography, making jewellery out of hair was one of the only ways to keep a physical part of someone close to you while you were separated.”
According to The Boston Globe, the modern resurgence and popularity of friendship bracelets began in the 1980s during protests about the vanishings of Mayan Indians in Guatemala. They were brought into the United States of America by religious groups for use in political rallies.
How to make friendship bracelets
Modern day friendship bracelets don’t require much, here’s what we used:
- A variety of cotton embroidery floss and wool threads
- Sticky tape
- Charms, beads and other trinkets as desired
You don’t need to be creative or good at crafts to make impressive friendship bracelets. The beauty of the handmade process is that no two pieces look exactly the same.
According to Folklore, when attaching a friendship bracelet, you should make a wish in that moment. It should then be worn until it is worn out and falls off by itself to respect the love put into making it. When the band falls off naturally, the wish is supposed to come true.
Learn English in Byron Bay. Lexis English students study General English, IELTS, FCE, CAE, and English plus Surfing in a friendly and professional school right in the heart of Byron Bay and only 15 minutes from the beach.
