The conference is over and I’ve been home a while getting back into my regular life.

For me the conference was almost pure delight, but there were some sad parts as well. One of the main organizers drove all the way there from Texas only to fall badly ill and not be able to attend. And at the final meeting and dinner there was no announcement about the next conference. It’s possible that this might be the last Braids Conference, but some participants are confabbing about that, so I’m hopeful. (more below).

It was held at Case Western Reserve University campus, in Cleveland Ohio – a large beautiful park-like campus, spread out with trees and sculptures and walking paths, right next to Cleveland’s museum district.

I came a few days early to be a tourist, and relax after my relaxing train trip.

By Thursday, the other three participants in my dorm suite started arriving. We were an American, a German, a Dane and a Finn, with a range of overlapping textile interests, so it was super fun doing show and tells, and talking about strings.

I got to see Brigitte weaving on her inkle loom almost daily, and Mari Voipio from Finland brought exciting books and information about Scandinavian and Baltic textile history and traditions, including loop braids.

The brilliant and indefatigable loop braid researcher Joy Boutrup was in our suite as well, and she was literally a joy, and also a wellspring of loop braiding history and information. (Her new book is about to be published – date uncertain, but editing and layout start next month.) Meanwhile, down in the main lobby of the dorm building a daily circle of braiders and weavers hung out every day on couches and chairs also sharing inspiration and company. It was easy to find privacy, too, since everyone had their own bedroom with a tree-filled view, plenty of space and a big desk.

Sunday afternoon was registration, where we picked up our schedules (and goody bags), and then met upstairs for the welcome/ introduction.

The next morning everything started, beginning with breakfast from 7-8:15, then rushing to not miss the daily pre-class talk at 8:30, which really was not to be missed.

Then at 10:00 came the first classes, scattered throughout two adjoining buildings. I was in Joy Boutrup’s European Loop Braiding class, which I had taken 13 years ago, at the second Braids conference, in Manchester England. This time she gave us two full days rather than one on European braids, though, and luckily, I was more relaxed about the class I would be teaching later, so I think I managed to absorb more, and take better notes and photos. (more details about her class in an upcoming post)

Here’s Joy, demoing her spectacularly simple, effective, and portable beater stand for making extra-long loop braids:

Wednesday was the “off” day, a break between classes, with some participants doing a Conference-sponsored tour at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that Cleveland is famous for, and others including me, doing a behind-the-scenes textile tour at the Cleveland Museum of Art (more to come!), and others probably resting, braiding, or being tourists – which I also did. I think this was the afternoon/evening that Jacqui Carey and I took a walk to a nearby park, and met another participant, Paula, to check out the food trucks and a community music extravaganza on the lawn – which persisted completely undeterred through a sudden huge downpour with wind, thunder and lightning! (This might also have been the night it stormed in the wee hours, and a tree blew down between our two classroom buildings? Nothing that dramatic happened during any of the days, luckily – the weather was mostly sunny and humid or overcast and drizzly)

Thursday I met up with Fumiyo Kitahara, of the Kute-uchi website Kumihimo With Loops (in Japanese and English). It was so great to see her! She had brought some gorgeous examples of her most recent Kute-uchi braids.

These braids were all traditionally made by two-to-several braiders cooperating on one braid, and braiding with hand-held loops. However, Fumiyo makes them all solo! and without any high-tech devices to aid her, just simple holders to set down some of the loops on while she braids with others.

I met Fumiyo at Braids 2016, where she gave me some tips about how to braid the beautiful Itsukushima-gumi in the photo above – the original braid in the Itsukushima shrine has a very different braiding strategy for its central contrast column, which isn’t usually reproduced in modern versions of the braid made on takadai (that I’ve seen, anyway).

Thursday was also the start of my two-day class called “Tubular loop braids, and braids made around a core“. I had a small class of great students – I would demo a braid, and then mostly just stand back while they tackled it. (Yet somehow it never occurred to me to take any photos, dagnabbit! If any of you guys took photos, I would love to add them here!)

They made it through all the braids I had hoped to cover, and we even had time for an extra-credit braid, a 6-loop, solo-braider version of the 15th C. double-tubular Couvert braid. They had glazed eyes but seemed happy by the end of class time on Friday. I probably had glazed eyes, too – I was slightly euphoric that the class had gone so well, but also shocked to suddenly realize that the conference was essentially over.

Of course it wasn’t actually over, there were still that evening’s events – all in the banquet room: a participants’ braid exhibit, a silent auction of beautiful and/or useful items, music and a bar, announcements and awards, and a catered dinner.

Oh – I forgot to mention two other conference happenings – the Conference Exhibition at the nearby Cleveland Botanical Garden’s visitors’ center, which is worth a whole separate post, and the two Market Halls. The Market Halls were Tue and Thu evenings – a big roomful of products and supplies sold by participants at the conference, very fun and enticing to wander around all the tables and talk to other shoppers and sellers. I couldn’t resist buying some of Mari’s petite and pretty wooden textile tools from Finland, and a minuscule but powerful lamp from Kim Davis of the Lace Museum in Fremont CA (who not only took my class, she had also graciously volunteered to be an early guinea-pig student for some of it!).

Friday evening was the celebratory catered dinner, after the participants’ exhibit and the pre-dinner drinks, and overlapping with the auction, announcements and well-deserved awards. The sad but not unexpected announcement was when Debbie Richardson of the Braid Society announced that she is retiring from her role as a main supporting organizer of these conferences, which she has done for most of them, either officially or behind the scenes. This wasn’t a surprise, and it’s about time she took a rest from it! But there’s nobody else (so far) jumping up to fill her shoes, and more tellingly, there was also no announcement of anyone offering to host the next conference in another country. Lately, that announcement has always come at Friday’s dinner. So it’s not known at this point when or where – or even if – there will be another International Braids Conference.

However, after I returned home, the WhatsApp chat that had been set up for participants at the Conference was full of “we can’t let it die!” posts, and someone on the conference wrap-up committee posted that after this conference is “wrapped up” (apparently there’s still a lot to be done after the official end of the conference), an email will be sent around to find out what people think, and find out what would be entailed in planning for another conference. I hope it happens! I learned so much at this conference, saw so many old friends, and made new ones. The feeling of being part of a larger textile and braiding community is maybe the best thing about these conferences.

We’ll see! In the meantime, I haven’t even unpacked all my class supplies, and now I have to start packing for a week-long geology class in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains . I’ve saved a lot of details about the conference to post later – the conference Exhibition, more about Joy’s class and mine, and maybe some of the touristy things I did in Cleveland…

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Fumiyo Kitahara’s Kute-Uchi braids are reproductions of Japanese national treasure braids that were all made with hand-held loop braiding, long before kumihimo dais came into use. They are associated with (and known by the names of) the following temples and shrines (top to bottom):

Saidaiji temple 西大寺 – 28 loops
Tomobuchi shrine 鞆淵八幡宮 – 36 loops
Chusonji temple 中尊寺 – 36 loops
Chusonji temple 中尊寺 – 36 loops
Itsukushima shrine 厳島神社 – 22 loops
Horyuji temple 法隆寺 – 80 loops

(28 loops = 56 strands/ tama)

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Posted July 10, 2025
Last updated July 12, 2025

© 2025 Ingrid Crickmore