Part 2 on two-person fingerloop braids done by a solo braider: Flat double braids.
[Part 1 introduced the basic instructions for double braids, and taught solidly rectangular, and divided double braids.]
Flat double braids of 8 loops. Embroidery floss, 5/2 perle cotton, linen, rayon
Part 1, see also Part 2 (flat double braids) and Part 3 (hollow double braids)
Two-worker loop braids; multi-person fingerloop braids; team braids, double braids—whatever term you use, these are the braids that are tantalizingly out of reach for most loop braiders, because the traditional methods for making them require two (or more) braiders working together on one braid.
This is the photo-tutorial on 3-loop braids that I made last year [2011] for the Braids and Bands yahoo group. You can scroll through the tutorial in the small thumbnail window (enlarge the text first–see magnifying glass icon), or click below the window to read it full-screen. It can also be downloaded as a pdf file from Scribd. (video supplements can be found further down, below the photo-tutorial and yarn info) Continue reading
Here’s a video to go with my tutorial—a few posts ago—for Douglas Grant’s Round Spanish Braid of 7 loops. The video also demos a new color pattern for the braid. It’s shown above in mercerized cotton sport-weight yarn (elann.com’s Lara). That’s about equivalent to using doubled strands of embroidery floss.
For this color-pattern, the seven loops are all bicolor—five loops blue+white, two loops blue+black. Be sure to arrange them on the fingers as I show in the video. (My original post has instructions for several other color patterns, plus the necessary loop-order to follow for setting up your own color patterns.)
This is not a beginning level loop braid. It’ll be much easier to learn it after first learning 5-loop, then 7-loop square and flat braids, and then the 7-loop Spanish braid (a rectangular braid).
0:00 Intro (slow start—skip ahead if you don’t want to wait through it. Slide the bubble under the video to any of the time points shown below.)
2:57 Color pattern set-up for this pattern
3:33 Braiding moves, very slowly
7:50 Slightly faster
10:49 Faster
12:08 One unbraiding move
12:59 A look at braid’s pattern
16:30 Last look at pattern, also at the divided section forming a loop at the top of the braid.
On all these youtube videos, you can change the quality of the video by clicking on the circular icon that looks like a gear (just under the video, towards the right—it displays after you start the video). Pick a lower quality if you have a slow server, or if the video isn’t playing smoothly. I suppose a higher quality will sharpen the image. On the far right is an icon to click for full-screen mode.
If you click on the “youtube” button on the same taskbar, you’ll be taken to a youtube page to watch the video. There, if you click “more” to expand my description under the video, you’ll see a timeline that is actually clickable—meaning, you can click on any of the timepoints in the left column, and the video will start playing right at that point! (I love this! Only learned about it recently and have been trying to add it into all my videos.)
Here’s a friendship bracelet video tutorial that also shows how to make my favorite type of color pattern for a square braid: chevrons across bicolor stripes.
The bracelet tutorial teaches an easy way to make a lo-tech adjustable closure if your bracelet has a loop at one end. This can be used for any bracelet with a loop at one end. (The photo of the teapot does not show this method!—see braids below.)
I also show a way to start the braid with no loose ends at the top of the braid, and with a loop that can be used as a closure. The videos demo the braids with 7 loops, but this can be applied to 5-loop or 9-loop fingerloop braids, too.* Continue reading
I just made a video showing how to arrange the loops on your fingers to follow one of the charts you might come up with in using Gary Mitchell’s interactive pattern-generator for the 7-loop “Spanish” finger loop braid. Kumihimo pattern-planners are fairly well known, but I think Gary may be the first braider to come up with a pattern generator for loop braiding. (I described how the planner worked in my previous post, this video just shows how to interpret its charts.)
The photo above shows some braids I’ve made using Gary’s pattern planner. (Click two times on the photo to see more detail.) The # on each tag is that braid’s planner ID#. If you enter a number in the planner, you’ll get a chart for that braid. Continue reading
Square and flat wool braids, most of 7 loops (two are 8-loop braids). Click for more detail.
This video teaches fingerloop braiding with 7 loops, showing the divided, square, and flat variations of a 7-loop braid, plus how to unbraid back a few cycles to fix a mistake. Learn 5-loop square and flat braids first. Once you’ve braided a few of those you’ll be ready to try this 7-loop version. In this video there is less slo-mo for practicing along with, as I was trying to squeeze all the variations into one video. Continue reading
[new- I just added text instructions for a more complex kute-uchi braid—called Genji Uchi—at the bottom of this post.]
Here’s a rather slap-dash post to announce two things—1 is that I recently made a couple of video tutorials on kute-uchi braiding (a Japanese hand-held loop braiding technique). I really wanted to finish up a Readers’ Gallery post and get that posted first, but it just ain’t done yet! Whereas these videos got dashed out in a hurry in answer to a video request, and they ARE done.
The other thing is my (tentative) new blog format—more about that below. Any feedback on this change is welcome—I am not wedded to this format, but certain things about it do seem better than the old one…
Here are the 2 new videos, each demoing one basic Kute-uchi move:
(these were video requests from Petr in the Czech Repuplic! He is very interested in both Kute-uchi and Kumihimo braiding—has now acquired plans for a marudai and is building it himself.)
The “Inside-Through” move, making a 5-loop braid
Below is a video demonstrating the “Outside-Around” move, also making a 5-loop braid Continue reading
A-fell loop braiding [index finger is the active braider] and V-fell loop braiding [ring or little finger is the active braider] move the transferring loop between the same fingers and through the same loops, but in the reverse direction. In the following video I demo using both methods to braid and unbraid a 3-loop square braid. This is a great way to undo back to a mistake. At the end of the video, I demo a slower way to unbraid that’s especially useful for braids of eight loops or more, since A-fell braiding can’t be done with more than seven loops.
[The video below shows braiding and unbraiding a 3-loop braid. I demo unbraiding a 7-loop braid in a more recent video-tutorial on 7-loop square braids. It's toward the end of that video, at 23:50. Unbraiding a 5-loop braid is almost the same process.]
[see my super-easy 3-loop braid tutorial for learning how to braid 3-loop braids like the one in this video.] Continue reading
This video tutorial demos an alternative method for braiding the 15th c. 8-loop braid called Lace Dawns, or Daunce in the Medieval loop braiding manuscripts. It is a much faster method, with no extra moves, or doubled loops on any fingers.
Lace Daunce, or Lace Dawns. 8-loop flat braid, wool
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