Make a Rakhi for Raksha Bandhan

Hi friends, its been long since I wrote. I am back with Rakhi, right on time for coming up Raksha Bandhan. For my friends outside India, Raksha Bandhan is a festival that celebrates love and affection between brothers and sisters. On the day of Raksha Bandhan sister ties a Rakhi on brother's wrist as a symbol of love, Sisters pray for their brother's well being and brothers take a vow to protect their sisters. So here is the Rakhi I made for my brother.

 I am sharing the procedure of how I made it, in case you love to make one for your brother. After all what's more special than anything handmade? 

Grab yarn or embroidery floss of your color choice. You can use just a single color too. Go by your style. Here I picked red, green and gold colors for Indian elegance :)

I tried an 8 strand fish tail braid for my rakhi and that is what is shown in above picture. Its very easy for beginners. (If you are familiar with any other braids you can definitely go ahead with those too.) 

1. Use tape and arrange 8 strands in a row. 

2,3,4,5. Grab the left most, right most threads and braid in the middle every time. That is move left most thread to center right and right most thread to center left.

6. Tighten the braid as you move and keep repeating.

Its quite easy to do than see. Trust me, once you get a hang of it you can finish it pretty fast.

Your braid will eventually look like this. Once you reach sufficient length for your rakhi stop braiding and finish with a knot (general overhand knot). Remove the tape, used to stick the other end and finish it with a knot too.

Use super glue to secure the knot and trim extra threads. I left 4 threads out of 8 on either side.

Draw and cut a circle piece out of felt cloth.

Grab few rhinestones, beads and glue to embellish the felt circle.

Use a toothpick for precised glue application. I added a thin bead lace around the circle.

Get creative and embellish the circle piece to your liking.

Add little glue to center of the braid and stick the embellished circle piece. Cut and attach a smaller felt circle piece to its back so that it feels comfortable against wrist for when you tie rakhi.

That's it! Tie handmade lovely rakhi to your brother and celebrate Raksha Bandhan. If you live far from your brother like me, then send him your handmade Rakhi and it will surely brighten his day. Atleast I hope so :)

Once again Happy Raksha Bandhan to you. Thank you for stopping by. Celebrate your day :)