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)…
Requests from readers, my answers and updates, also a note on European loop braiding history.
Thank you everybody who clicked in on my sidebar poll! There’s been a lot more response than I expected…
A few links to new info …and a poll! Short and easy—scroll down my sidebar to see it →. I’m trying to get an idea for which way this blog should be heading. [update – Thanks everybody who filled in the poll! It gave me more incentive and a lot of ideas. Poll results here.]…
I am so sorry about this– twice now I’ve hit “publish” instead of “save draft” on a new post I’m working on. If you are a subscriber to this blog, please accept my apologies for getting two invalid notices about it. A real post is in the works but wont be ready for a while.…
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.
The class I taught at Braids 2012 was two days on how to make double braids as a solo fingerloop braider. I also learned a lot from my students, including that one of them had learned how to braid 9-loop braids using thumbs as well as fingers in China during the mid 1900’s! This is totally new information for the history of loop braiding!
Ok, here goes with Part 2… This is about the kute-uchi loop braiding day in Joy Boutrup’s class at Braids 2012. (Her first day was on European finger loop braids.) Her class covered so much that it was like a feast…
Loop braiding highlights at the conference: Two different 2-day loop braiding workshops, plus a report from Mari Omura on loop braiding archeological evidence in Asia going back thousands of years B.C! Joy Boutrup’s 1st day of class included several unusual European loop braids that she has discovered through analyzing museum specimens—braids that are not known from any of the 15th or 17th C. loop braiding manuscripts…
This is a photo-tutorial in PDF form on 3-loop braids that I made last year for another site. It includes instructions for 3 very different-looking variations of 3-loop braids. You can scroll through the tutorial, or download it as a free pdf file. Extra info, including videos and suggestions for materials are below the photo-tutorial. Enjoy!
Just a note to say that I’ve added text instructions for the Genji-Uchi braid to last year’s Kute-Uchi tutorial. I also want to plug Cindy Myer’s pages on Medieval fingerloop braids — this is an incredible resource! She’s analyzed the braid instructions of 3 different source manuscripts, and made beautiful reproductions of almost all of them. These are displayed in a chart with links to her very clear text instructions for each braid…
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…
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.
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 