how to make a paracord belt

There seems to be an over-abundance of gifts to make for women, but a more limited choice for men. So I stumbled upon the idea of weaving a belt from paracord… for the survivalist family member who never misses an episode of The Walking Dead. Be warned, though, this project takes a big dose of patience.

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 You will need the following:

• 3 lengths of paracord, each about 50 feet long (I used 2 lengths of silver/camo and 1 length of black for the belt above)
• lighter or matches
• belt buckle

You can easily buy the paracord online, but I actually bought mine from Hobby Lobby. I suggest the 550 strength if you want a strong, durable belt. I purchased the belt buckle from Amazon, one that fits belts up to 1.5 inches wide. 

Working with such long pieces of paracord is perhaps the most difficult part of the whole process. First you cut the paracord into 50′ lengths and seal any raw ends with a lighter, to prevent raveling.

Next you place the 3 cords onto the buckle (below), as shown in this tutorial (photo courtesy of edcforums.com):

Now it gets tricky. I rolled up each tail (6 in total) to shorten them and secured each one with a rubber band or pony-tail holder. Otherwise, it is almost impossible to begin weaving with such long strands of cord.

IMPORTANT! STOP RIGHT NOW AND READ THIS NEXT STEP VERY CAREFULLY.

Do all the steps above with 3 short pieces of cord, maybe 12-18″ each, for practice. To learn to weave the Double Cobra stitch, follow this You Tube video. It is the one I found most helpful, but practice is definitely required before you are able to weave a consistent pattern for a sharp look. Believe me, this is important. If you practice with those enormously long strands, you’ll grow tired of taking apart your knots and reworking them. 

Are you finished with your practice mini belt? Now you can return to your original project and start weaving! 

Periodically throughout the weaving process, I measured the belt to see how much longer I would need to make it to fit my son. Once I was at the end, I followed the steps in this tutorial from edcforums.com for the finishing instructions. I searched through many tutorials and found this one to be the easiest to follow. 

And this is my finished project…

But hey! Paracord is not just for guys. I’ve seen some of the cutest survival bracelets in trendy colors for women, too. 

What about a paracord training collar for your four-legged friends?

There you have it. Now every member of your family can don a paracord item, just in case of a zombie apocalypse.