DIY Ribbon Lei

Sak's brother will soon be graduating (again).  This time for his Masters!

So I'm thinking - time for me to act like a respectable member of this Hawaiian family. I will make my brother-in-law a lei for his graduation!

Cousin-in-law at his graduation. This is what an appropriate amount of leis looks like. No neck allowed!

I bought some yellow ribbon, and since Michael's did not have the maroon-red color that makes up USC's colors, so solid yellow it would have to be.

Sak and I had bought ribbon lei craft books on a past trip to Hawaii, but since my mom has them, I just had to figure it out on my own. Sak wouldn't answer the question of whether he'd made any before, and ran off to his cave with Pokemon White, never to be seen again.

I started by adding a small bead to the end of a long piece of thread, to serve as an anchor.

Then I weaved the ribbon back and forth on my needle, creating loops.

But the loops weren't consistent in size at all, and looked lame.

So to adjust my method and get even loops, I pulled the ribbon out the length of the needle before poking it through. That way each loop was the length of the needle, consistent as well mixed pudding!

Three spools of ribbon later, I'm not done.  Oops. Back to the store I go.

This is one spool length.

Two more spools does the trick, and I have a nice fluffy yellow ribbon lei for Sak's brother.

And after digging around my scraps, I even found a small bit of maroon ribbon to finish it off.

Total cost was about $2.50, since each spool was only 50 cents. Gotta love it!

This was a pretty relaxing project, and I think I'll make some more for a few other graduations I'll attend in the coming month.  Maybe with multiple ribbon colors, that would be nice!

Did you have a lei or two (or forty) at your graduation?