Crocheted Bracelets made from Edging Patterns

In the mid 1980s I was in grade school. Talk about a fun fashion period for a kid! Neon colors, ruffles, big hair, and massive amounts of jewelry. Somewhere around 1984 I had loads of jelly bracelets and wore them halfway up my forearm. If I recall, most of them came out of pizza parlor $.25 toy capsule vending machines. While I don’t think I saved any of those high-fashion accessories, I didn’t lose the urge to wear a lot of bracelets. But here’s the thing about bracelets: they get in the way. The beaded bracelets I wear now either hurt my wrist while writing and typing or scratch up my watch crystal. But what if you could wear bracelets halfway to your elbow (or just one) and not have any watch scratching or uncomfortable wrist positioning? What if they were crocheted bracelets?

Crochet edgings inspire crocheted bracelets

My sweet (and growing) collection of crocheted bracelets come from my obsession with crochet edging patterns. As noted in my discussion of how to make crocheted headbands using edgings, I absolutely LOVE crochet edging patterns. I don’t have enough things to actually edge with them, so I dream up ways to use them on their own! My latest way is to make crocheted bracelets. And a bracelet is as about as close to instant crochet gratification as you can find—7 inches and you’re pretty much done!

Before wandering into the land of edging bracelets, I had done a few plain crocheted bracelets for my husband. Those are simple strips using back loop single crochet and fastened with a button. A while back I thought it might be fun to make some bracelets for me with edging patterns. After stitching up a few edgings, I couldn’t decide on a button and those projects fell by the wayside. Then came Mother’s Day and I decided to make a crocheted bracelet for my mom from an edging I’d played with before for one of the buttonless bracelets I had started.

Choosing an edging pattern for crocheted bracelets

Stretchiness

Already knowing the bracelet-friendly properties of this edging pattern, I dove right in to making a bracelet for my mom. I picked out a contrasting button and fashioned a button hole by repeating the petal stitches around a few chain stitches on the top end. This edging stretches a bit, which is great for a bracelet when you haven’t measured someone’s wrist. Stretchiness also helps when fastening a bracelet or when you want to put it on without unbuttoning it. I suggest playing around with your edging after you have made a few pattern repeats. Do you like the stretchiness of it? Does the pattern look nice when you stretch it a little? Does it look nice when it isn’t stretched? Your answers to these questions may change how long you want the bracelet to be.

Symmetry

At first, I thought I would need an edging pattern that was the same or close to the same on both sides–an insertion rather than an edging, perhaps. I mean, most bracelets are the same on both sides. (By sides I mean the side closest to your hand and the side closest to your elbow.) I realized that I was being silly! You can easily have a beautiful asymmetric wrist decoration. That opened up the possible edging patters I could turn into jewelry!

The blue crocheted bracelet makes use of an edging pattern with different edges. The fluttery, scalloped edge just cried out to become a bracelet. (Crochet patterns talk to you too, right?) The more I worked with it, the more I loved the triangle points along the top edge. This pattern requires trust. But, as my husband reminded me, we’re making bracelets made to fit around a wrist and not around an elephant. You won’t have to wait days to know if your trust was well placed. Here, I wasn’t sure that the scallops would end up overlapping and fluttering, but by some magic of crochet, they did! It uses a logic similar to that of sewing gathers, if you sewed the fabric as you created it. And just like after gathers are stitched down, this edging does not stretch.

Using beads with crocheted bracelets

Not content to simply make crocheted bracelets, I decided to add seed beads to the mix. I love glass seed beads. And I have a lot of them. Beads used to be my craft supply overpurchase of choice. Friends have made some really lovely crocheted or knitted items with beads, but I had never used beads in crochet before. I did the purple one first because the pattern had the offset points where beads would be perfect. I ended up really liking what the beads added to the piece. So of course, I needed to try another one!

On the blue crocheted bracelet, I chose to add beads at each scallop of the fan. I was also going to add some on the side of the triangle points, but those stitches didn’t look as nice when bulked up with beads. After an inch or so, I went back and redid the stitches without beads. The additional asymmetry the beads added when only used on one edge enhanced the look I was going for.

Tips for working with beads in crochet

1. You may already know that you need to string all of your beds on your yarn or thread before you do any crocheting. But crochet is pretty magical and maybe there is a trick to getting the beads onto a stitch when they aren’t already on the yarn. Maybe there’s a stash of crochet secrets that are made available on a need to know basis only. Sadly, if such a trick does exist, I have not yet reached the “need to know” level. So I stick to the rule of stringing all the beads on my thread first.
2. With #1 in mind, string more than you think you will need. You can always pull them off your unused thread at the end, but adding more would require cutting your thread. Cutting requires weaving in more ends. No thank you!
3. Play around with the stitches where you’re adding the bead. You may need to add or subtract a stitch or two to get it to lay properly. On the purple crocheted bracelet, I put the bead at a picot. Instead of making a 4-ch picot, I made one sc with the bead in the stitch as the picot. The beads were less floppy that way and the bead formed the picot point effectively.
4. Don’t be afraid to frog things when it doesn’t look right. Integrating beads into existing patterns means you’re necessarily experimenting and sometimes the experiment doesn’t work.

Clasps for crocheted bracelets

Seriously, the options are endless for how you choose to fasten a crocheted bracelet! Fabric items lend themselves nicely to button fasteners. Even better, this is a fabric you make yourself. Fashion a buttonhole right into the design! Buttonholes can be a simple sc-covered chain loop added to the end of the bracelet, a hole worked into the center of the pattern, or a loop covered in some of the pattern stitches. Similarly, you could use elastic like I did for one of the crocheted headbands. It would be easy to stitch the edging over the elastic to mostly hide it but still allow for some stretch.

For these bracelets, I decided to get out the wire and used pliers to make a simple S-hook that catches a jump ring on the other side of the bracelet. Crocheted stitches hold metal rings securely if you put them in the right place. Rather than adding your hook or a jump ring to one loop of one stitch so that it gets pulled out of place, play around with locations for the ring until you find one that will hold. Place the fastener there.

Next up in the world of crochet edging patterns

Reading my edging pattern books over and over contributes heavily to my obsession with crochet edging patterns. Or maybe my obsession prompts me to read them? Either way, the crocheted bracelets here come from wonderful books by Terry Kimbrough. The lavender and purple bracelets use edging #73 in 111 Easy Edgings. The blue bracelet uses edging #37 in Fifty Beautiful Edgings. I love both of these books like you wouldn’t believe. Full of so many patterns asking me nicely to please make them. I will, little edgings. Don’t worry.

My obsession with crocheting edging patterns isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Almost as soon as I start a new project employing “off-label usage” of edging patterns, five new ideas occur to me. For me, these patterns are a catalyst for creativity and I hope they spark the same kind of excitement for you! Coming soon on Trainee Hero: scarves adapted from edging patterns, bookmarks using edgings, and (shockingly!) edgings actually edging things! What kinds of things have you done with edgings? Let me know about it in the comments or tag me in an Instagram post! If you’ve got any tips for using beads that you want to add to this list, please comment! I can’t wait to see and hear what all of you are working on!