This is part 3 of my double braid tutorials, on the hollow, or tubular version of the double braid. [Part 1 – Basic instructions, and Solid Rectangle double braids; Part 2 – Flat double braids.] No video in this tutorial—it’s not needed, as the method is so similar to making a flat double braid.
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.)
I just got another question about making smooth loop-starts, by which I mean braids that start with a looped opening on top, and no fringe—no visible ends of thread at the top of the braid. I’ve pasted in and expanded my reply as the second half of this overly-long post. [10/21/'11—I just added a video demo'ing one way to make a loop start with no loose ends]
The first half of this post started out as a reply to another reader’s comment on ways to braid longer loop braids. (At some point I’ll probably cleave this post into two–once I get more photos and or videos made for them.)
Center braid is 7+ yards long, but I call it my “whole-nine-yards” braid, since that’s how long the loops started out.
Here are photos sent in by a reader, Dominic, of some of his “bicolor loop magic” braids–in a great hemp yarn as well as waxed cotton. Not only are they beautiful braids, but the knotting he’s done with them (and other cords) is really inspiring–I’ve got to get going on learning more knots!
Dominic's star knots, hemp
Departed loops, two-color loops, bicolor loops—in fingerloop braiding, all these just mean loops made out of two colors, tied or linked together. Bicolor loops produce very different braid patterns than the patterns you can get from single-color loops.
With bicolor loops you can also make really dramatic pattern-changes in your braid. And not just in these mega-loop braids that I’ve been posting about lately. Here’s another one, though: (click twice on any photo to see the braid structure)
Another bicolor 14-loop Spanish sampler, dmc embr. floss
I promise I won’t post any more Spanish bicolor samplers!
Before I leave them though, I’m posting this booster/ plug and a tutorial for bicolor loops. Bicolor loops add so many patterning possibilities to any kind of loop braid, which is why they have been used worldwide in connection with both fingerloop and hand-held loop braiding. In the old English braiding manuscripts they were called departed bowes, or boes—a bow being a loop.
bicolor loop braids–cotton, wool, linen (click for more detail)
An intricate and unusual 7-loop braid —the word for braid was spelled some funny ways in the 17th C. manuscripts— is the basis of the 14-loop alphabet braid.
Spanish samplers, bicolor loops, dmc embroidery floss.
Joy Boutrup described this 7-loop braid in her recent groundbreaking analysis of the 17th C. letter braids.
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finished Citrus Letterbraid Bell-pull. (click 2 times to see the braid structure)
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