Of Strings & Green Things: Para-cord Survivor Bracelets

~ Highlight of the Day: Saving Virginia's mint plant - the cute little (hungry) caterpillar

has been relocated :) ~

I spent the weekend in Arizona, and learned how to make those survivor bracelets that are all the rage with all the prepared people. And since I know you are all super prepared people, I thought I'd share my new found knowledge :)

You will need:

3 arm-lengths of polypropylene rope (para-cord)

(Or if you want more exact numbers, around 10ft for men and 8ft for women)

1 small buckle

1 lighter, or other source of flame

1 pair scissors

You probably don't want rope more than an 8th of an inch in diameter

or it will get pretty bulky, and if you get thinner stuff you may need more of it.

And the more pounds it can take the more useful it is - it may someday be supporting your weight as you dangle precariously off a cliff, you never know :)

1. To begin, cut your appropriate length of rope and find the middle of it. Pick up your cute little buckle and make sure the ends are curve-up, like a smiley face.

2. feed the middle of the rope through one end of the buckle. Make sure you are heading from the bottom to the top of the curve, or for the math-minded, from the convex side to the concave side.

3. Then pull the cut ends of the rope through the loop and pull it tight. This secures the middle point of the rope to one end of your buckle.

4. Feed the cut ends through the other side of the buckle, from the convex side to the concave (this picture has the buckle flipped upside down to what it previously was. . . it's ok, you can still do it!)

5. Measure the size of your bracelet on your wrist. It will get tighter as we tie it, so leave some space for that. I suggest one or two fingers width, but it depends entirely on how tight you want it to be.

6. Hold onto that length and don't let it slip! We are going to unbuckle the bracelet and start tying.

7. Start by folding the ends down, so the buckle is pointing straight up and all four strands of rope are headed down. Then take the left cord and cross it over the two cords in the back. This will form a backwards 'P'.

8. Take the right cord, pass it over the tail end of the left cord forming the 'P', and then back behind the two back cords.

9. Still using the right cord, push it up through the loop of the 'P'.

10. Go ahead and pull the rest of the cord through, and pull it tight. This first knot will be a little skewed, because it's the first. So if you think it looks a little lop-sided, you're doing fine.

11. Now if you've noticed, what used to be the right cord is now shooting off to the left, and what used to be the left cord is now going off to the right. This is important. The cord we initially made the loop of the 'P' with will always make the loop of the 'P'. So we're going to go back and forth between making backwards 'P's and frontwards ones. The first one we made was backwards, so this one should be exactly the same thing, just reversed.

Here's the steps one more time, reversed for the second knot.

12. Now it's just a matter of tying the knots consistently so they look even. The picture above is what two knots look like, the picture below is three knots.

13. Keep it up till you get to the other side of the buckle. If you want a lot of rope on there, try to keep the knots tight and close by adjusting them as you go.

Just keep tying till you can't possibly fit another knot.

Here's the whole bracelet, buckled back together, with the extras still uncut.

At this point try it on. If it's too small or too loose it's not too late - simply work backwards, undo all the knots (this is good practice for that emergency situation anyway), make your length adjustment, and tie it again.

The tying goes pretty quick once you've got it down, so adjusting it before cutting the ends off it completely worth it if you want a good fit.

14. After it's the perfect length you just cut off the extra, take that lighter we mentioned at the very beginning, and melt the ends to seal them.

A few things to be mindful of on this step:

make sure you melt it enough to stop all unraveling. A raveled rope will be of no use to you on that cliff, and it's not too stylish either.

After melting the ends, let it cool for a second or two and then flatten it out with the flat edge of the scissors or another object you don't mind getting melted para-cord on. This will keep it from slipping through and coming undone before the emergency situation.

And last but not least, when you're flattening the melted ends, be careful not to meld them to the other strands of the bracelet. Unless, of course, this bracelet is purely for looks, and not to someday save your life. If that's the case then go for it - seal it all off completely and melt it all together so it'll never come undone.

If you want it to be functional, make sure you can work it through in a panic :)