Today's little experiments, in between other projects.
First, the 3-loop flat fingerloop braid, done by alternating reversed and non-reversed loop-taking. It is cute, yes.
I had initially tried to do a 6-loop spiral braid to see if it would make the pattern of the Hedeby apron plait. But it did not. So I unraveled it and did the flat braid for the sake of completeness and also to see how it compared to the structure of the Hedeby apron plait. It is not the same.
The Hedeby apron plait looks like it ought to finger-loop, maybe. I am pretty sure it can easily be done on a disk, too. Maybe it is the same as the 6-loop spiral, or it's a 6-strand kongo-gumi style of braid, done loosely or with specific loop-tightening to keep it flat rather than round/square. Or maybe not, since the crossing threads aren't opposite each other. Hmmm. I'll probably jump to free-end braiding at some point, and then this plait will be on my list of things to do, along with seeing how it would work on a disk or marudai. I don't know if it's good or bad or "just is" that I'm willing to speculate so cluelessly about stuff. I don't yet have an intuitive understanding of thread path and braid structure and the equivalent braids done with different braiding techniques.
I've already done the split/divided braids, nothing novel there, so that's unlikely to be the special focus of a post.
When I had a bit more time, I did a few basic 5-loop braids.
The dusty rose band is done using the A-fell method, following the instructions from Jean Leader's class notes from the Braids and Bands class she did in 2021. It can also be found here. The yellow braid is done using the V-fell method from Ingrid Crickmore, here. They look pretty much the same, at least in monochrome yarn. That is reassuring. Using the ring finger as the operator finger is a bit more fiddly for me than using the index finger. Both of these are described as "square braids" and that indeed is what their shape pretty much is.
The green braid is from here and can also be found in the archived list of braids from silkewerk.com. It is known from historic sources and seems to be the first one discussed in the fingerloop.org and silkewerk.com sites. It is a broad lace of 5 bows (spelled somewhat more randomly in the original sources), which, as it turns out, is not at all the same thing as the square braid. It is a flat-looking braid on one side and a round/curved braid on the other. The only difference from the square braids is how many loops (and which loops) the operator finger goes through before picking up (and reversing) the running loop.
I'm not sure why I thought they might turn out the same, but it was probably something about how it was the first braid described in the above websites and how it's claimed to be easy and very common. Poking around the loopbraider.com website, I see that it is described elsewhere on her site as a "broad lace" and a widely-found example of an unorthodox braid. (which means that some but not all loops are gone through, in Speiser's usage). It is indeed kind of D-shaped. Crickmore says that "The most common loop braid worldwide is a 5-loop unorthodox braid. It is even easier to make than a 5-loop square braid, because you only have to insert the working finger through one loop, rather than two." Yup. Well, playing around with different over/under/through patterns was already on my list of things to do.
Dunno what the next round of fun will be. More of this? Something else? Both/neither?
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