paracord necklace 1: prayer beads

despite not being a religious person, i love prayer beads. the rosary is what i'm most familiar with, but had never seen any made out of knots until recently. they're made out of nylon twine, and are quite cute. finding directions online wasn't difficult, but i went with rosary army new avengers- mainly because the name made me laugh. i have an enormous amount of paracord laying about, so this is the first of a few necklace explorations to come.

• 550 paracord, in 3 colors. cut 4 times the final length of the piece.
• magnatac
• gold toggle
• scissors
• lighter

knot the little beads:

• download the instructions for tying the beads here. it took about an hour of practice, but then it felt comfortable.
• singe all the ends of the cords with the lighter to prevent fraying. starting about 1/4 of the way in from the left end, tie the first knot. move down about 1.5" and tie the next knot. continue knotting until it reaches the desired length.

• repeat knotting the other cords. it helps to lay the cords as they will hang when it's worn. this way, you can adjust the length between the knots so they appeared evenly scattered in the final piece.

knot the big beads:

• to tie all the strands together, use the same technique as tying the smaller knots, but only loop the cords around your finger twice. it's important to hold onto the strands and keep them in the same order while tying.
• repeat tying the strands together on the other side. cut cords to the length you like.

finishing the ends

• pull the outer cord down from the end, exposing the inner strings. trim just over a 1/4" off the inner strings. stretch the outer cord back to it's original place. singe the ends with the lighter, pressing each cord to flatten it a bit.

add the clasp:

• glue together the 3 cords with a small amount of glue. use a binder clip to hold together the cords until they've dried.
• add a drop of glue to the interior cap of the toggle. fit the cords in, and let them dry overnight.