Sep 30, 2011
I now (finally) have videos for all three of my square braid tutorials.

The introductory level (5- loop braids) tutorial has 4 videos—2 on the square braid and 2 on making a flat, wide variation with a loop/ buttonhole at each end.

I made the first two at a super-slow-mo speed that I hope will be good for practicing along with. I blabbed a lot on all the videos, you might want to turn off the sound to concentrate better while you are braiding along!

Most of the videos went over the youtube 15 minute limit, so I had to cut them into 2 videos.   [I’ve upgraded to a 1/2 hour limit now, in case you’re wondering why my more recent videos are so long and boring!]

There are 2 videos each for the 9-loop tutorial  and the 11-loop tutorial.  The nine-loop video is not in (extreme) slo-mo, except for the parts involving the thumbs. This is because you will have learned 7-loop braids before starting on 9 loops, so most of the braiding moves should be fairly familiar by that point.

The 11-loop tutorial is in slo-mo again, because there is a new step in the loop-shifting.

Getting these videos made is a big load off my mind!—For a long time I’ve been dragging my feet about tackling video tutorials because I thought it would have to be a very complicated method of filming and editing—somehow integrating long and close shots of all the moves, with my husband having to do all the filming.

Instead, I ended up putting the camera on a mini-tripod in front of me on the table, and braiding around it.  The result is that there is only one distance—close.  But it does show each loop fairly clearly which is the main thing I wanted.

So I was able to make videos for the October Braids and Bands tutorial, and just kept on going with videos for these blog tutorials, too.

Any feedback on the videos would be appreciated…
Including if you are unable to view them—I’m not sure how fast your internet connection has to be for youtube videos to play clearly.
If you have a slow connection, click on the gear-like icon at the lower right of the video—it appears when the video starts playing—you can then adjust the quality of the video. “Lo-fi” should be easier to play.

This all started because of the current loop braiding tutorial I volunteered to host on the Braids and Bands Yahoo list.

In making the photo-sequences for the braids in the tutorial, I ended up using a tripod and a time-delay setting to take pics of my own hands doing the braiding moves, using my kitchen table as a backdrop. I’d never done this before–my husband took all the photos of my hands in my previous photo-tutorials.

After a while it finally occurred to me that maybe this close-up position with the tripod would work for taking videos of my own hands as well. (My husband is very happy about this breakthrough! )

I really hope the videos make these braids easier to learn.