I wasn’t trying to make a Year of the Snake fingerloop braid when I made the first of these curvy braids last month, shortly after Chinese New Year. Continue reading
Tag Archives: friendship bracelet
Hollow loop braids
23 FebThis 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.
Easy 3-loop braids
2 AugThis 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
Video for Doug’s braid
12 Jul
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.)
Bracelet with chevrons
5 JunHere’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
START HERE! 5-loop braids
5 Jun
Fingerloop braiding with 5 loops is easy to learn and can make a wide variety of braids. Above are just a few variations of square and flat five-loop braids. The loop braiding method I teach can easily be extended up to 7 and 9-loop square and flat braids, which are bigger and have even more color-pattern possibilities (see my other tutorials)
NEW: For an even easier intro to loop braiding, see my more recent tutorial on 3-loop braids, —Strong, pretty cords and flat braids, that are super-fast to make…Eight- and nine-year-olds can learn these with adult help.
The diagram below outlines the basic 5-loop method, click on it once, and then once again to enlarge it to full size:
The video below shows the loop set-up, demos the braiding moves for a square braid very slowly, gives tips for trouble-shooting and for efficient ways to hold the loops.
BTW—Don’t braid over the top of a table! It’s good for photographing the loops, but not for braiding. Off the edge is much better. Also, don’t worry if the loops seem kind of tangled or twisted at the very top of the loop bundle when you first start the braid. Just pull the first few braiding moves tight. Any initial “messy bits” will get covered up by the braid.
Part 2 (below) has more slow braiding practice and tips. If it’s too slow and ‘talky’ for you, skip ahead in the video—slide the little bubble below the screen forward—or skip down and check out my written tips and photos below the videos. Past the middle of the video I braid faster. Near the end of this second video, I start to show how to divide the braid Continue reading
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Thanks for visiting Loop Braiding!
Thanks for visiting Loop Braiding!
