Basic Crochet Cord Bracelet

As early as now, I am already looking for Christmas gift ideas. I want to give handmade gifts to family and friends. And then I found this tutorial.
I wanted something that is simple and easy to make so I can create a lot. I'm planning on making a generic gift for everybody. And so I chose this style.

I watched the video tutorial and I thought this would be easy. So Sunday, I went ahead and started making the bracelet. The first challenge was that the vid was for right handers, I'm a leftie. Although I already used to intructions for righties and transforming it so I can still create the project, this one still took me some time to get started.

Then the real challenge made me so frustrated, I had to practice formtwo days until I get it right! Yes, two days! The bracelet looks like a braided set of yarns and it really looks so simple yet cool.

The process was really easy actually but I got stuck on one step. So first, you need to make a slip knot to start. Make sure to leave a few inches of yarn for the closure. Then you make two chains. Still really easy. Then, you make an sc on the back loop of the first chain. I learned this kind of stitch is called the back stitch. I created another bracelet last Saturday using this newly learned stitch, by the way. Now for the first tricky part, you need to locate the "V" formed by the SC that points to two vertical loops. You'll need to make an sc on those vertical loops. At first it was hard for me to find that vertical loop because I crochet too tight so I had to unstitch and try to make loose loops.

This was where I had a lot of hard time. The loops were just too tight no matter how loosely I crochet. I had to undo and redo my crochet a billion times. To make things easier for me, I used a large needle to sort of pull the loops so my crochet hook would fit into them.

When I finally got the hang of it, making the braid looking bracelet became a lot easier.

I still had to repeat some of the stitches because I can't seem to make them all equal in tension. The green one was the practice bracelet and the black one is going to be the gift bracelet.

It's funny because I was feeling so flustered about not being able to make the stitches right away, I had to forego a lot of things. This was supposed to be my entry for @needleworkmonday this week but I didn't make it to the cut off. :( But at least I still learned something new and that's what matters.