How to Make Craft Lace Lanyards

Craft lace lanyards are a fun project for crafters of all ages. They are a popular project at schools and camps. Lanyards created with craft lace, also called gimp or boondoggle, look complicated and colorful, but are simple enough that children can make them, even if it takes a little bit of practice first. The basic stitch used in this article will be the square stitch, which creates a basic four-sided lanyard, but there are many other stitches based from the square stitch that give a variety of appearances, from twists to flat sheets.

Cut one strand of each of two colors. The strands should be about a foot long for every inch of lanyard you want. So, if you want to have a 6-inch-long lanyard, you should cut two 6-foot pieces of lace. Find the centers of both pieces and place them perpendicular to one another at the centers.

Start the lanyard with the square knot. Take the bottom strand and bring it over the top, leaving a loose loop, repeating with the opposite side so that there are loops facing both directions. Take the top strand and weave it through the farther loop, repeating with the other end. Pull tight.

Repeat the square knot until the lanyard is the length you want. The color you loop first does not matter, as the knot looks the same whether you loop strand one or strand two first.

Knot the end by completing a square knot completion stitch, which requires that your last regular square stitch is left a little loose. Take a loose strand and wrap it around the same color stitch to the left and up through the middle, repeating with each strand. Pull tight to close the stitch.

Cut the loose strands to a length that looks right for your project, but long enough that the stitch will not come undone.