17th Century alphabet braid, letter braid, original variation by Ingrid Crickmore (18 loops rather than traditional braid's 14 loops) , finger loop braiding, loop manipulation

A couple braids and a poll…

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.]…

Flat double braids

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.

Color-pattern planning, square and flat braids

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.

Tutorial: 9-loop braids

Why waste two of our ten fingers? Use thumbs to make even bigger and better braids! This was done historically in (at least) China and Finland, as well as by my first loop braiding teacher here in the U.S.