Posts about original loop braids, or about original braiding methods for making traditional loop braids. These are braids or methods that I or someone else came up with, and for which I’m not aware of any earlier examples or references.
A tutorial for a non-traditional 12-loop braid with an unusual number of loop-transfers: Five! You might call it a Double-and-a-bit-more Braid. The video tutorial is for my solo-braider method. Also text instructions for an easier “odd” braid – the 7-loop Square-and-a-half braid of 3 loop transfers – for the left braider of a team making the larger 12-loop braid. (The smaller braid has some fun asymmetrical color-patterns of its own!)
An all-history post: Which braids belong to which era? Which ones are ‘made up’? Can a braid be ‘period’ if it’s not in the old manuscripts? Information on the known loop braiding manuscripts, differences and similarities between braids of different eras, recent historical and archeological findings, what’s happening with LMBRIC, more. Also info on traditional fibers – types of silk, linen, wool, etc.
Update: Now with videos!!!! This Kute-Uchi site now has videos and tips on how to organize and handle hand-held loops in making traditional Japanese braids, including how to deal with large numbers of loops!
Fumiyo Kitahara’s Kumihimo with Loops (in Japanese and English).
I’ve been trying to reproduce a Japanese national treasure braid known as the Itsukushima braid. It’s described in Masako Kinoshita’s big book on Kute-Uchi: 日本組紐古技法の研究 (Study of Archaic Braiding Techniques in Japan). This is a work-in-progress…
Dominic will be teaching knotting at Braids 2016! His 2-day class is called Cylindrical Braids, which refers to nautical-type knotted ‘braids’ that can be formed around solid objects—like handles of tools, etc.
The first photos I’ve received back since sending my Nun’s Book letterbraid tutorial out into the braiding ether! —Of knots as well as letters…
I’m already very excited about the upcoming international Braids conference: Braids 2016. The loop braiding workshop I’ll be teaching there is on braiding and planning designs and motifs—like the so-called ‘letter braids,’ but with a braid that is much easier to make…
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…
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…
Here’s another “too-many-loops” video. This one is a demo showing how I braid the flat version of a 13-loop square braid, but with extra color-linking moves in each loop transfer.
Here’s a video that shows how I make twelve-loop double braids. If you are new to my site, please don’t be put off from loop braiding because this video makes it look too complicated! – I have many tutorials for easy and beautiful loop braids, see my Tutorials index.
In the first part of the video I show some braids in my twelve-loop double braid sample book…
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)…
I wasn’t trying to make a Year of the Snake fingerloop braid when I made the first of these curvy braids last month, shortly after Chinese New Year…
Hollow/ tubular ‘double braid’ – my solo method, plus openwork, color tricks, and jewelry ideas. Several color patterns taught for 6- to 10-loop hollow braids.
Update 11-9-2020: I just added an illustrated how-to for making these braids! These are plain weave repp braids that look similar to the ‘bend’ or ‘chevron’ braids of the old manuscripts! A new (to me) method…
My second tutorial on “double braids”! Here I show you how to braid a flat, ribbonlike double braid, twice as wide as the rectangular braid of my earlier tutorial, but made almost the same way. The tall braid photo located somewhere in my right sidebar is of a 10-loop flat double braid, made with color-linking – a color-manipulation trick that I demo in this tutorial.
The braids in this photo are like square braids, but twice as wide! They are nice and substantial, not ribbonlike, and can have very different designs on the upper and lower surfaces if you use any bicolor loops.
I call these braids “rectangular double braids” because the traditional way to make them required two people to braid square braids side-by-side and joined together (the braids, not the braiders!). Here I teach my workaround method for one person to braid a double braid without a helper.
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.]
Loop Braiding 