(Click twice on any photo to see the braided structure more clearly.)

This braid doesn’t actually look hollow or tube-like as you are braiding it, or even afterwards (though you can make it look tubular by inserting a narrow object like a knitting needle into it, massaging the braid a bit and removing the object, see photo lower down). It will look rectangular or slightly D-shaped in cross-section, not very different from the solid rectangle double braid. But the color patterns can be very different! For two reasons:

1. When braided by my solo-braider method, the hollow braid’s side surfaces are its widest surfaces.(* see note)
You will probably think of the sides as the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of the braid after it’s done, because they are the widest surfaces. That puts a different section of the braid in the center-view. A color set-up that would make a zig-zag pattern in a solid rectangle braid, would instead have mirror-image symmetry in this hollow rectangle braid—like X-shapes going down the braid (the ‘X’ shapes can look a bit like eagles, or maybe lobsters).

2. The second reason for very different patterns specifically applies to bicolor loops. In the hollow braid, only two of the four loop transfers of each cycle are turned, instead of all four of them as in a solid rectangle double braid. Whenever a bicolor loop is turned it results in a color change to the braid, so these two braids can have quite different color patterns when you use bicolor loops.

The first two photos below are not of hollow braids. They show a couple of solid rectangle braids set up for a few variations of that braid’s “Edge” pattern of bicolor loops—the blue-and-white braid also has a short section of the “one-loop-wrong” pattern. (The color set-ups for these two 10-loop braids are taught in my first double braid tutorial, near the end.)

Compare them to the hollow rectangle braid’s “Edge” pattern variations below:

In my lingo, Edge patterns are those bicolor loop patterns in which the lengthwise columns of the braid keep to one color, without the braider having to do any extra braiding moves (i.e no ‘linking’). The braids in the photos above are actually all slight variations on the ‘pure’ Edge-pattern. They all are made with (mostly) bicolor loops, set up to create lengthwise dark-light columns.

‘Edge’ patterns of lengthwise striping in square and double braids are only possible for those that have an even number of turned loop transfers in each cycle of moves. So there is no Edge pattern for flat braids, as they only have one turned loop transfer (unless you use an extra ‘linking’ move, see my posts on color-linking!).

The Hollow Rectangle double braid is truly hollow (if you’ve remembered not to turn any of the inner loop transfers!), so you can easily change it from a flattish, rectangular shape, to a round shape.  Insert a fine knitting needle or maybe a shish kabob skewer into the braid and squish the braid up and down to help it fill out.

You can then re-flatten it into any orientation you want—changing the way the color pattern displays on the braid. Or you can thread a core through the braid to keep it filled out.  In the photo below, I hadn’t actually inserted a core, but the stiffer, gold-colored viscose threads tend to make the braid keep its rounded shape. (If I wore this bracelet a while, it would probably flatten out, though, so if I want it to stay round I would definitely pull some kind of core through it, maybe a round shoe-lace.)

Or you can use a hollow braid to cover and decorate a narrow object. Or maybe put elastic, or a ribbon inside—plus some other possibilities:

The braids that probably jumped out at you are the ones with the open areas!

This is another really cool thing about my solo-braider hollow double braids…Because the sides come out seeming like the top and bottom of the braid, any divided areas appear to be in the center of the braid, looking sort of like a keyhole. (As I show in my videos, a divided area is made by not turning any of the transferred loops.)

And since the braid is hollow, anything you string through the braid will show in that opening! Ribbons, another braid, beads, etc.

Plus, the sides of that keyhole are cupped, and will hold onto a flat object of the right size, especially if it is oval, diamond-shaped, or best of all  “eye”-shaped (like an oval but pointed at both ends…is there a name for this shape? it seems like such a basic geometric shape, but I can’t think of a word for it!).

Here’s a photo of a bracelet I sometimes wear when I’m teaching:

I’m not crazy about the colors I used, but I like the inserts. They were some thin, flat metal scrap-booking ornaments (eye-shaped) that I happened to come across, with English words on one side and Chinese characters on the other.

The braid above was made with more loops than those in my tutorials, but 8 and 10-loop hollow double braids have the same possibility, maybe with the added security of a little glue to hold the inserted elements in place.  Judging the size is important, too.  It’s best if the opening is small enough that it’s difficult—but possible—to insert the flat object. The object should not be very thick, and it will hold best if it is pointed at the top and bottom. That large, round insert in the upper photo would probably need some glue if it were used in an actual piece of jewelry. I didn’t glue the inserts in the bracelet, though, and I’ve worn it many times without having any of them fall out.

(click link below to go to set-up instructions for all the color-variations shown in photos)
LOOP SET-UPS FOR BRAID PATTERNS:

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Notes:
The ten-loop hollow double braid is notated in the 3 known 15th C. loop braiding manuscripts, called “A hollow lace of 10 bows, 2 fellows.” But hollow and flat double braids may not have been made before the 15th C. Noemi Speiser and Joy Boutrup’s research into extant historic European braid specimens found that double (and even 3 and 4-worker) braids from before the 15th C. seemed to only have been made with a loop exchange method that precluded the possibility of flat or hollow braids. Solid rectangle and Side-slit rectangle double braids can be made with that more archaic loop exchange method, though they would have a slightly different structure and appearance along the center-line of the braid. 2-or-more-worker braid artifacts with that archaic loop exchange method were noted from the 12th C. all the way up into the 20th C., including braids from the 15th C., so it didn’t disappear in the 15th C even though it’s not described in the 3 known loop braiding manuscripts from then. Both loop-exchange methods can be inferred from braid instructions in the 17th C. manuscripts. (See my recent history post).href=”https://loopbraider.com/2019/06/05/historical-accuracy/”>history post).

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I now have a video demoing how I make 12-loop hollow double braids. Same concept, but it’s a lot more complicated with the loop-shifting for so many loops. Twelve loops is a next-step after learning how to manage thumb-loops in a 10-loop double braid (taught in both my previous double braid tutorials).

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The sides are the widest surfaces of this braid when my solo-braider method is used, but not when two braiders work together to make it—the classic method used historically in both hemispheres of the world for making double braids. (see my tutorial on the 2-Braider Method)

However, whichever method is used, the resulting braid is hollow—it is just an artifact of the tightening that causes it to flatten one way or the other. The braider is free to manually re-flattened it on any axis after it is made.

This is something I only discovered in the summer of 2013, when I was videoing Amy and Patrick making a double braid together! I had always made my double braids as a solo braider up until then. I had certainly noted and wondered at first why the hollow and the flat versions both braided “tall” — that is, folded into a vertical rather than horizontal shape while being braided — and ended up realizing it was because the tightening move pulled the two edges inward. Unlike the other forms of double braids, there are no turned (“crossed” or “reversed”) loop transfers in the center of a flat or hollow double braid to hold the upper and lower layers together. But it never occurred to me to wonder if that might not be the case if the braids were made by two braiders working side-by-side!

It turns out that when two braiders braid this braid together, the two far edges don’t get pulled together when the braid is tightened. (The two far edges being the left braider’s left edge, and the right braider’s right edge.) That would only happen if no tightening were done by the two braiders until after they exchanged their nearest loops—each pulling all their loops against the other braider’s loops to tighten. This might be possible to do (?), but it is much easier and more natural for each braider to tighten their own half of the braid, before exchanging their nearest loops with each other. In that case, each half of the braid is tightened separately, so the two far edges are never pulled together. The braid is mostly all tightened up before the loop exchange even occurs.

I wish I could add this into my double braid article in Threads that Move! (proceedings of Braids 2012, see top of my sidebar.) That’s one advantage of writing on a website rather than in a physical book – I can come back and edit it whenever I want. My article in Threads That Move covers many more types of double braids than I teach here on the blog, but I can’t go back to it and edit anything!

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Last updated Oct 19, 2019

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