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Stretch Cord, Sizing and Fit

  • Before you go
  • 6 min read

Why kandi is strung on 0.8 to 1mm stretch cord and not craft lace, how to size a single that clears your hand, and when a breakaway clasp is the safer call.

Almost every problem people have with their first few pieces comes back to cord: wrong material, wrong length, or sized to a wrist instead of a hand.

Kandi is strung on stretch cord — round elastic beading cord in 0.8mm or 1mm. That is what lets a single go over your knuckles and settle at the wrist, and it is what makes the whole trade ritual physically possible, because the bracelet has to slide off one arm and onto another through two sets of laced fingers.

The material to avoid is flat plastic craft lace. It shows up in a lot of “pony bead” tutorials because it is what school craft kits contain, and it is completely wrong here: no stretch, no give, no way to size it so it both stays on and comes off. If a tutorial tells you to use lacing, it is teaching a different craft.

Cut generously. Singles want about eight inches more than the strung length; cuffs want three to five feet because you will be passing back through beads over and over. Every chart on this site gives a cord length with that slack already built in.

Then knot it properly — a tie-off that survives a weekend is five minutes and saves you a bracelet.

How it goes

  1. 1
    Use stretch cord, 0.8mm or 1mm

    Clear or black elastic beading cord, often sold as stretch magic. 1mm is easier to knot and better for pony beads with wide holes; 0.8mm fits more passes through a single bead, which matters on cuffs where the cord goes through the same bead several times.

  2. 2
    Do not use plastic lacing

    Flat plastic craft lace — the stuff sold for camp lanyards — does not stretch. A bracelet made from it either does not go over your hand or has to be tied loose enough to fall off. It is a different craft with a different purpose, and it is why a lot of first-timer tutorials produce something that does not survive one night.

  3. 3
    Size the hand, not the wrist

    A single has to clear your knuckles to go on. Measure around the widest part of your hand with your thumb tucked in, and string to roughly that length — the elastic will let it settle down to your wrist. Sizing to a wrist measurement gives you a bracelet you cannot put on.

  4. 4
    Leave real tails before you tie

    At least two inches of bare cord on each end. Trying to tie a secure knot on a half-inch tail is how bracelets come apart mid-set.

  5. 5
    Cut long for anything wider than a single

    Ladder and X-base cuffs pass through the same beads repeatedly and eat cord fast. Cut three to five feet — roughly four times the finished piece — because there is no graceful way to splice more in halfway through a round.

  6. 6
    Use a breakaway clasp on necklaces

    Anything going around your neck in a crowd should come apart if it gets caught. A breakaway clasp does that; a knotted elastic loop does not. This is the one place where a clasp beats a knot.

  7. 7
    Store it flat and out of the sun

    Elastic cord perishes. Heat and UV make it brittle, so a spool left on a dashboard for a summer will snap on you. Keep the spool in the bead box, not in the car.

Next

That is the end of this track. Back to Learn or browse the charts.