Several of the young and young-at-heart students I have worked with in the last few years have asked me about making friendship bracelets with low vision and how to find accessible friendship bracelet patterns. DIY friendship bracelets and beaded bracelets have exploded in popularity thanks to trends like VSCO bracelets and Eras Tour bracelets going viral on social media, and I often get questions about how to make these tutorials and patterns accessible or how to adapt friendship bracelets for low vision so that they can be made independently by those with visual impairment. Here is a list of tips for making friendship bracelets with low vision and finding/adapting accessible friendship bracelet patterns.
Finding a crafting space for making friendship bracelets
When making friendship bracelets, crafters are expected to tie the embroidery floss/thread in a loop around a clip or hook, or to rest materials on top of a flat surface. It’s important that crafting spaces and workspaces be free of patterns or visual clutter/visually complex colors that can make it more difficult to see the individual strands of thread or other materials, and that the creator is able to see what they are working on.
Some examples of places to make friendship bracelets that I have set up either for myself or students include:
- Tying thread around a clipboard or binder clip on a slanted surface, which I can then position at an angle under the bifocals in my glasses. This is my personal favorite way to make friendship bracelets with low vision (shoutout to L for teaching me this so many years ago!)
- Placing the bracelet underneath a video magnifier, either a desktop video magnifier or a handheld device to magnify the individual strings, beads, or letters/charms. I’ve also seen a version of this with iOS Magnifier configured.
- Tying embroidery floss to a vertical surface, such as an over-the-door hanger, which can allow someone to stand close to the thread.
- Placing beads and crafting materials on a dark rimmed cookie sheet, which can help keep beads from spilling everywhere or losing track of items.
- Working on a lap desk or other elevated surface that makes it easier to lean in closer to view something.
- Wearing optical aids or magnifiers designed for detail work.
When making beaded bracelets, I recommend choosing elastic or string that “pops” against the work surface as much as possible, and placing colored tape on one end of the string while working to help provide a visual landmark for keeping track of the string/keeping it from moving away. If clear elastic/string is the only option, the colored tape will help a lot with serving as an anchor, though it may be necessary to cut a longer string to accommodate this. Another option is to consider using a beading needle, but this is not something I have personally tried.
Related links
- iOS Magnifier and Low Vision Accessibility
- A to Z of Assistive Technology For Low Vision
- Upcycling Music Stands into Assistive Technology
- Painting Pottery With Low Vision
Start with simple patterns
When first learning how to make friendship bracelets, it’s helpful to start with simple patterns that do not require detailed weaving directions, such as the Chinese Staircase or Candy Stripe patterns. These involve having the user cross one piece of thread over the other in the shape of a 4, and then pulling the string through to form a knot. These were my favorite types of bracelets to make in middle school because it was easy to get creative with different color combinations, and they were easy for me to work with since it was easier to visualize/conceptualize what a 4 shape looks like compared to some of the more complex knots.
For Eras Tour beaded bracelets, it can be challenging to secure bracelets with fine motor challenges. One of my friends said that the “best” knot they have used to secure bracelets is actually two knots: they start with a square knot, followed by an overhand knot, and then add a small amount of glue or nail polish to really secure it. My friend also recommended using the larger pony beads and buying pre-sorted letter beads to streamline the bracelet process.
Choose thread and bead colors that are vibrant/high contrast
The current version of my friendship bracelet kit contains several bright, vibrant colors that easily pop against my desk, clipboard, or whatever surface I am working on. I tend to stay away from using large amounts of white, black, or brown thread since these are more likely to blend into surroundings, and instead go for more vibrant, saturated colors that are easier to see and keep track of. To help with picking out colors for bracelets, I love using tools like Coolors to generate color palettes or browsing Pinterest for inspiration.
Related links
- Coolors website
- How To Write Alt Text For Color Palettes
- High Contrast and Low Vision
- How Amazon Alexa Can Help You With Art
Making friendship bracelet patterns accessible
Types of friendship bracelet patterns: Normal and Alpha
There are two types of friendship bracelet pattern designs, including Normal patterns and Alpha patterns. Normal patterns show knots in a diagonal direction, similar to a diagonal grid. Alpha patterns show horizontally tied knots, which look similar to a horizontal grid. Normal patterns usually have arrows indicating which direction a knot should be tied or the type of knot to use, and are more common when it comes to VSCO bracelet patterns or classic friendship bracelets, while Alpha patterns are for beaded designs and resemble pixel art.
Use color coding when creating patterns
When creating or modifying friendship bracelet patterns from images posted online or in a book, it helps to use bright, high-contrast colors that are easy to distinguish— that way, users can easily see where the different strands of thread are. While they do not have to use the same exact colors for the bracelet as the ones shown in the patterns, users may find it easier to understand how to complete a pattern if the colors are different from each other. It also helps to make sure that the patterns are accessible for users with color blindness or other color deficiencies, and I’ve linked a tool for testing this below.
A few simple strategies for designing for colorblindness include:
- Avoid mixing shades of red and green together
- Convert shades of red to magenta
- Combine magenta or red with yellow and cyan for three-color combinations
- Consider using magenta, yellow, green, and blue for four-color combinations
Add weighted shapes or symbols that stand out from the background
Another component of friendship bracelet patterns is the use of shapes and symbols to show what type of knot to use, or what direction the knot should go in. When adapting friendship bracelet patterns for low vision, it helps to add weighted shapes or symbols that feature bold text and stand out against the colored background, so that users can easily see them. Easy options for making friendship bracelet pattern tutorials easier to see include:
- Adding a text box/markup tool on top of the existing graphic to enlarge text
- Tracing over symbols with darker ink
- Add a white outline to black text or black outline to white text to make it visible against any color background
- Instead of only using color as a way of conveying information about symbols, add a shape too. For a real word example, a stop sign is identified by its unique shape, the word stop, and a distinctive red color, so someone could use any of these three characteristics to identify an item
Display beads/thread against a plain surface
Patterned backgrounds, even ones with subtle patterns, can make it more difficult to identify beads or strands of thread. When possible, use a plain background that provides contrast against the materials. One way to do this is to place black construction paper or a similar dark surface behind light-colored beads or thread to make it easier to see, or use a white/light colored background for darker beads. Rimmed cookie sheets that aren’t shiny can also be a great option, though the shiny surfaces may cause glare.
Related links
- High Contrast and Low Vision
- WebAIM Color Contrast Checker
- How To Modify An Instrument Fingering Chart For Low Vision
- How To Modify Accessible Anatomy Graphics For Low Vision
- Highlighting Information With Low Vision
- Reduce Glare In The Classroom For Low Vision Students
Adding descriptions to friendship bracelet tutorials
Add alt text and/or image descriptions
Alt text and image descriptions provide a text-based description of visual elements of an image that can be accessed by users with visual impairments using assistive technology. Since friendship bracelet tutorials are often so detailed, I recommend linking a blog post, extended text description, or in-depth caption that provides text-based instructions on how to make the bracelet(s) based on the pattern shown, which can serve as an extended image description. A great example of text-based tutorials can be found on the Friendship-Bracelets.net website.
For shorter alt text or for image descriptions that have a tutorial linked elsewhere, I recommend describing what the finished product looks like, e.g. “instructions for how to make a wide friendship bracelet with a heart pattern, shown with cobalt blue and hot pink embroidery thread as the background and foreground colors.”
Add a video description for tutorials
Video descriptions can come in two forms; a text-based description that serves as a transcript and describes key visual information, or a recorded audio description that uses a narrator or detailed verbal description that the user can listen to as the video is played. This can be helpful for tutorials and can provide additional context or clarification for what is going on in a video.
Related links
- How To Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the Visually Impaired
- How To Write Alt Text For Amateur Art
- How To Write Video Descriptions For TikTok
- Creating Audio Description For Recipe Videos
- Creating Audio Description For Crafting Tutorials
- How To Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions For Jewelry
- How To Write Alt Text For Memes
Online resources for finding accessible friendship bracelet patterns
Looking for accessible friendship bracelet patterns for low vision? Here are some sources I have used:
Friendship bracelet tutorial websites
As I mentioned earlier, friendship-bracelets.net has a ton of free text-based tutorials on different types of friendship bracelets, and also incorporates photos and videos. I used this website along with lessons from friends to learn how to make friendship bracelets for the first time, and have since taught other friends using the same resources. One of the students I worked with recommended BraceletBook because it has options for previewing patterns with specific colors, which can be helpful for following along with tutorials.
Download friendship bracelet books
Friendship bracelet books are another great source for text-based tutorials, and I found several books on Bookshare, an online library for people with visual impairments and print disabilities. Other options can include searching on Libby for eBooks or magazines with a library card, or searching for eBooks on another platform.
One option for saving text-based friendship bracelet tutorials for offline reading in large print is to use the Send-to-Kindle tool to save webpages or documents free to the user’s Amazon Kindle library, no Kindle required.
Browse websites like Pinterest for ideas
I love browsing the Pinterest app with low vision on my iPad because it supports large print sizes and is less visually cluttered than Pinterest for desktop. Pinterest posts often link to websites with detailed tutorials or blog posts that provide more context or detailed instructions for how to make friendship bracelets (or other crafts), making it an ideal platform for finding easy friendship bracelet patterns.
Related links
- Friendship-Bracelets.net
- BraceletBook website
- Ten Cool Things You Didn’t Know About Bookshare
- Reading Magazines With The Libby App And Low Vision
- How I Use Send-To-Kindle With Low Vision
- A to Z of Assistive Technology for Reading Digital Text
- How I Use Pinterest For Studying In College
More resources for making friendship bracelets with low vision
- Want more arts and crafts content? Browse Arts and Music Archives (veroniiiica.com)
- A well-lit space is a must for creating friendship bracelets and working on crafts with low vision— I share more about this in Lighting And Low Vision
- Interested in watching a concert video, but sensitive to flashing lights? I share ideas for how to minimize exposure in How I Watch Concert Videos Without Strobe Lights
Published June 19, 2020. Updated November 2024