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Hold your
finished braid UPSIDE DOWN and see how the strands lie. You want to set them
out like this. If doing the Diamond Braid, the opposite strand colors should
be different, but if you're doing the Spiral Braid, the opposite strands
should be the same color. I'm doing the Diamond Braid here, so I'll make one
red strand opposite one yellow strand, etc. |
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What we're
going to do now is create one Square Stitch, but we'll leave the stitch loose. In
this shot, I've created the first loop needed for Square... |
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...and
after making the next two loops needed for Square... |
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...and
after making the last loop and weave needed to complete the Square Stitch. |
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We now
need to take the other end of our project, the end with the lanyard hook or
swivel hook, and stick it up through this loose Square stitch we made. If
making the Mini-Lanyard Keychain, stick between 1¼ and 1½ inches through the
loose stitch, but if creating a lanyard, stick 6 - 8 inches through. |
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Tighten
this initial Square Stitch around the braid. If making the Keychain, pull
this stitch TIGHT, but if making the lanyard, pull it just SNUG, so as to not
leave any loose loops. |
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Now do
another Square Stitch around the braid core. Again, pull it TIGHT if making
the Keychain, and SNUG if making the lanyard. If you made the Cobra Bracelet,
you may remember doing a stitch-over-a-stitch, when we did the Cobra over
some existing Cobra. |
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Continue
with another stitch of Square. We pull the stitches TIGHT when we're making
the Keychain, because we do NOT want the braid to MOVE inside the Square;
however, when we're making a lanyard, we want to be able to ADJUST the LENGTH
of the lanyard by pulling the braid up or down INSIDE of the Square, which is
why we only pull those Square Stitches SNUG. |
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Continue
doing Square Stitches. If you're making a Keychain, do about ½ to ¾ of an
inch of Square. If you're making a lanyard, continue doing the Square until
your loose strands are about 4 inches long... |
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...and
complete both projects by doing a Completion Stitch. For this Keychain, I slightly
modified how I did the completion, as I wanted all the loose ends to exit
from the same side of the work. After snipping the excess strands, create
some Fancy Tassels to finish this project off! |
Completed Mini-Lanyard Keychain!
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Other Lanyard Ideas:
- Try
adding some PONY BEADS to either the Keychain or Lanyard projects.
- Instead
of using the Square Stitch at the end, try using the Circle Stitch. This
looks great if you also use the Spiral Braid. Remember that the first
stitch you do must be Square, before you start doing the Circle stitches,
or else it will fall apart on you!
- Attempt
to swap between using the Spiral and the Diamond braid. This is more
easily done when you're also using beads.
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