Quick jewelry doodads

These are a few things i made while in the van on the way back from Wright Patterson AFB, for my friend and fellow cadet Alison. She said she wanted a necklace and i had two pieces of gutted paracord in my hands, blue and black, and im addicted to diamond knots so i tied one, trimmed one side's ends, and burned then and took the other sides spare cord and tied two overhand knots on the opposite string to make it adjustable. I put it on her and she said she wanted a bracelet, and being a gentleman i couldnt say no, even though i did at first. I thought the fish tail weave was suitable for her so i started with a cow hitch on one buckle and ran the inner cord to the other buckle, and tied a simple knot and began the weave. I finished the weave and put it on her, it was too big so i just cut one end of the buckle, unraveled some cord, and weaved it a little bit to re attatch it to the buckle, and i sealed it again. Not my best work, but it was quick and she liked it. I might invest more into jewelry making including ideas other than bracelets

I made this for my friend Jake in the van we were travelling in on our way to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. He say mine and liked it so he said he wanted his in different colors, I made this out of probably 3 feet of maroon and 3 feet of blue gutted paracord. I did the soloman knot starting from the top of the carabiner, and going down untill i reached the bottom. Once I reached the bottom of the carabiner, i looped the paracord around his keyring, leaving about an inch of excess, and started to do the soloman braid back up the loop, and comtinueing on the other side. He was happy with the way I did it, and I see myself making more of these in the future.

 This is a watchband I made for my AFJROTC instructor, he said he wanted one cause he needed a cool looking band on one of his old cheaper watches for bike week. (It's a Seiko, not exactly my definition of cheap watch!). He said he wanted black, OD and Foliage Green, he even got a buckle for me, so thoughtful. I used probably less than 10 feet of cord altogether. I thought it was okay, I was just going off his instructions because he said to make it like i made one of my bracelets. I showed him a different design earlier today and he liked it so i started re-tying it, pictures of that one later!

Good Luck?

I tied this because i heard that monkey's fist knots are good luck. I tied it around a small black marble I've had since i can remember, an above that i tied one of my favorites, a diamond knot. And i was searching for a way to finish it off for a keychain, so i looked on JD's from TIAT's website fusion knots an decided to use the padlock knot, i fit this little fob on my carabiner i posted earlier in this blog. It's my favorite good luck charm and is one of the most sentimental because of the knots meaning to me

Backpack Setup

 Large post, I know, but this my usual outfit on my backpack. First off the backpack was a freebee from a national guard recruiter I know. The backpack is well faded and has been through literal hell and high water. The bottle I got from the dollar store. I did some simple half-hitching on the bottle to give a little decoration and extra grip to the bottle. The second item is a lanyard I made in case I need to dummy cord an object to myself real quick. Its a cross knot lanyard i made using a tutorial on Stormdrane's blog. Its rather nice for attaching almost anything to myself, almost like having an extra hand.The third item are the backpack straps i did some loose knotting over, just to give some easy quick access cord, and to just look good. The fourth picture is just a close-up of them. I tied them relatively loose to avoid excess bunch-up of the strap material, and so it can be untied quickly, and I tied the cord in a way i can still adjust the straps. The final picture are some ranger beads i made using a couple diamond knots, and a random knotting method to make the beads. As you can see there are two different sections of beads, 1 section with 4 beads, and the other with 9 beads. Ranger beads are a means of measuring your pace and distance travelled. I'll give you all some real quick instructions for if you ever get lost in suburbia. first, measure how many left steps it takes to travel 100 meters (or yards), for instructional purposes lets say that magical number is 70. For every 70  left steps you take, you pull down one of the lower beads (the set of 9). and continue untill you've pulled down all 9 beads(that'll mean you have travelled 900 meters), after the next set of 70 left steps, (that'll be 1000 meters), you push all 9 beads up, and pull down one of the upper beads, (part of the set of 4) and repeat. It follows the same principle as an abacus. You can measure distances of up to 5000 meters with that set up if you do it right. here are a couple examples:
2 upper beads pulled down and 6 lower beads pulled down=2600 meters
4 upper beads down and 2 lower beads= 4200 meters

Tiny Dream Catcher

I felt like doing something nice for my mom, and she always liked dream catchers and hand-made gifts, and this is the result. I made it from 2 key rings, and about 3 feet of paracord in total. I gutted a section of paracord and ran the outside through a key ring until it covered it, then i burned the ends and fused the together. Then i followed a simple online tutorial to make a dream catcher, and i tied it using the inside strands of the paracord, and i tell ya it was a pain working without tweezers. then i did a simple soloman braid over the fused part of the paracord to hide it, and attached another key ring to it. I then dipped it in water to make the paracord shrink and tighten a bit, which i do for all my projects. She loved it, and it's still on her car keys.

Rifle Sling

 I've seen these a lot on survival sites and decided to make my own. It's not very tactical, being attached to a muzzle loader, but hey, it looks cool! (Plus I didn't feel like paying for a sling he he). I used a King Cobra Knot on this, and didn't even use sling mounts (once again, I'm cheap) The base color is black and the outside color is foliage green. It's wide enough to be comfortable, yet thin enough to not be cumbersome. Simple project yes, but it matches the gun well.