Posts with tips, tricks, and loop braiding ideas…
A track-plan diagram is both a cross-section view of a braid’s shape, and also a road map of how the strands interlace. Aside from looking cool, they can be useful even if you don’t totally “get” them. Even a little familiarity with them can help you better understand what you’re braiding.
There are 3 ‘rules’ for braiding flat braid zig-zag patterns, and they apply to all (unfolding) flat braids, including 5 and 7-loop flat braids. Using them you can plan wide zig-zags, skinny zig-zags, double zig-zags, bordered zig-zags, and more. Set-ups given for several 7 and 8-loop flat ‘square’ and double braid zig-zag patterns…
I’ve always been fascinated by braiding machines, so I couldn’t resist the new hand-crank toy by Spin Master / Cool Maker that makes a real Kumihimo braid called Kongoh-gumi! It’s not much like the antique hand-crank braiding machine that I was lucky enough to see and crank at Braids 2012…
I’m in the middle of making an extra-long braid, so I thought I would post an in-progress photo showing my loop-shortening strategy: “Caterpillar” tie-ups.
1. Loop set-ups for several great color-patterns for 5 to 7-loop flat braids! (no ‘pick-up’ required)
2. How to switch between different bicolor patterns in a flat braid (using pick-up)
3. Some “real” pick-up patterns for flat braids
Mixing it up with several easy bicolor patterns within one 6-loop square braid. Charts, tips, tricks, and cautionary notes (how much is too much?) – plus video
Pick-up patterns are ones that may require different braiding moves from one row of braiding to the next. The 17th C. loop braided ‘letter braids‘ were made this way. But pick-up patterning can be done in any two-layer braid – even a square braid!
Finished! Here are 26 (I think!) triangle braid color-pattern set-ups. Super-easy 5-loop color-patterns up to medium-hard 9-loop ones, and even a few beyond that…
Tips and ideas for using beads with loop braids. Finger loop braiding allows for some beading strategies that aren’t possible with kumihimo or other braiding techniques…
Free, local (east sfbay area) loop braiding get-togethers, for learning and practicing…
Also tips on how to make yet another double braid shape than the flat, hollow and rectangular ones of my double braid tutorials—the side-slit double braid.
Set-up instructions for 11 color patterns for flat double braids, plus 1 solid double braid color pattern, 1 hollow, and 2 side-slit rectangle color patterns.
Tips on braiding as a team – the traditional way to make what I call “double braids” — ten-loop braids that are twice as big and complex as a square braid. Yet all you and your partner need to know first is how to make a 5-loop square braid! Video and photos.
Here’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…
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.)
A couple of months ago, when I had to make some sample braids for an article, I decided to try a waxed cotton cord I had seen online. I wanted to use something stiffer than embroidery floss, something that would really show the structure of the braids.
Information about other sites that have good loop braiding tutorials, and why their basic braid instructions may seem different than mine.
7-loop braids are just one step up from 5 loops, but they add a lot more color pattern possibilities! And the flat variation turns out even wider and more ribbon-like.
Unbraiding is a real time-saver. If you make a mistake that you just can’t “live with,” it’s almost always quicker to unbraid it than to start all over again cutting yarn and setting up for a new braid. Even if you’ve braided an inch or more past the mistake by the time you notice it…
An alternative method for braiding the 15th C. eight-loop braids known as Lace Dawns (or Daunce) and Lace Piole. It is a faster method, with no doubled loops on any fingers. (Requires using the thumb of only one hand, so might be a good intro to 9-loop square braids.)
Loop Braiding 