A braid pic (first try at Andean-style braiding in the fist)

It's not quite done, but I'm making progress.

You can see how I'm finally getting the hang of things.  The braid is properly spiraling, yay!  And my tension is starting to become more consistent.

I'll work on this for a little while longer, but the strands are getting short.  They are not even in length -- I must not have adjusted the tension/evenness very well when I first started.

After this, I think I'll play around with 8 strand braids for a little while.  (The above braid is a 16 strand braid.)  There are some fun variations that seem very logical in their construction/development when I look at the charts in Cahlender and the Owen and Owen/Flynn and Tada books.  So I'll check them out.  Owen and Tada make charts for the marudai or square disk, but it's straightforward enough to generalize them back to in-the-fist braiding, I believe.  If I understand and can make the various 8-strand braids for realz, it'll be a good sign for when I return to the 16 strand braids and beyond.  It'll also help me to continue gaining the physical finger skills to make my braids more consistent and more efficient to braid.  And heck, I can always use a marudai or disk for any of these braids if I want to.

I've wandered into a bunch of fun videos in Spanish on slings and Andean-style braiding and cordage.  I don't know enough Spanish to follow all the details of what is being said.  But I recognize some of the words and I can certainly watch what's happening in the video part of things.  It's a nice complement to English-language sling-braiding videos.  And it's also a nice complement to the many videos I enjoy watching about other kinds of braiding and narrow wares, in whatever language they may be in.