17th C term for braids in which the braider makes 4 different loop transfers per braiding cycle rather than 2. These could be single worker braids, or multiple worker braids of many more loops, in which each braider makes 4 loop transfers.
A reader recently requested instructions for making a ten-loop letterbraid as a team of two braiders – the traditional method – and Joy Boutrup has agreed to let me share her instructions for the Nun’s Book 10-loop letterbraid here!
Video-based tutorial on my workaround method for braiding the 17th Century Nun’s Book letterbraid of 10 loops as a solo braider. I learned the traditional method from Noémi Speiser and Joy Boutrup’s Instructions for Letter Braids in 17th Century Manuscripts. Includes printable charts for my versions of the letters J, V, and Q…
I promised a long time ago to make a tutorial for one of the two known 10-loop letterbraids…
This is a ‘what I’ve been braiding lately’ post. It’s a letterbraid variation that I came up with last summer on a camping trip—an eighteen-loop version of the 17th Century letterbraid of fourteen loops. (Click on photos for more detail)…
Here’s a video to go with my tutorial—a few posts ago—for Douglas Grant’s Round Spanish Braid of 7 loops. I love this braid! The video also demos a new color pattern for the braid…
This video shows how to follow one of the charts you might come up with in using Gary Mitchell’s interactive pattern-generator for the 7-loop “Spanish” finger loop braid. It also demos a slightly different way to turn the loops, which gives the braid a more evenly rectangular cross-section…
A reader of this blog has come up with what may be the first interactive fingerloop braid pattern-planner! A few months ago Gary Mitchell contacted me to tell me that he was working on a pattern planner for the 7-loop Spanish braid. This was a huge surprise! (Especially since at that point the tutorial hadn’t even garnered many views.)
This braid is an unusual variation of a 7-loop spanish braid, with intricate color-patterns and a shape that is firmly rounded rather than rectangular in cross-section. Invented or discovered by Douglas Grant, a reader of this blog, who allowed me to share it here. (Thanks, Doug!) [A more recent post has the video for this braid, but this post has photos + instructions for several different color patterns.]
Thanks, Ricky, Sawyer, Ramona, Patty, Dominic and “Aunt” Janet!
How to set up the loops on your fingers to get the color order you want in your square, flat, Spanish, or double braid. Also, many square and flat braid color-patterns with setup instructions (and some flat double braid patterns contributed by Dan Gaiser). Part 2: hints and ideas on how to choose effective color combinations for your braids.
Bicolor loops are loops made out of two colors, tied or linked together. They can create very different braid patterns than the patterns you can get from single-color loops. Tutorial and tips for using bicolor loops, including 3 basic bicolor pattern variations that can be made with 5 or more loops, and how to switch between patterns within one braid…
If you are already comfortable braiding 7-loop square braids, this seven-loop braid might be fun to try next. It has twice as many loop transfers as a square braid–and they are done differently than you might expect! (Includes set-up instructions for several different color patterns.)
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. Joy Boutrup described this 7-loop braid in her recent groundbreaking analysis of the 17th C. letter braids.
Ok, I finished the last bit, and decided to take a couple more pics after washing it and before sending it off. After shrinking less than an inch, it’s 46 inches total–40 inches to the point where it splits into 2 separate parts for the first half of the “tail.” A little over 1/2 inch…
I’m almost finished madly braiding a letterbraid to send in to the Braid Society’s Traveling Exhibition*—still fiddling with the braidlets at the end. The orange is DMC cotton embroidery floss, doubled, so 12-strand, and the light green is an unknown brand of silk knitting yarn of similar weight (sport? or maybe thinner). The braid is…
Loop Braiding 