The Skjoldehamn hood braid (some experiments)

I'm still playing around with the braids that were used as ties on the Skjoldehamn outfit.  Today I tried a few things with the 4-element cords that are part of the hood.

Here is a small pic of the hood, screen-shotted from archive.org's copy of the thesis pdf.

And here is a small pic of the ties along with a diagram that traces the path of each element in the braid.

These are both from https://web.archive.org/web/20220225172743/https://kaupafar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nye-tanker-om-Skjoldehamnfunnet.pdf with the cords being discussed on p.47-48.

Google translation from the Norwegian text gives the thesis description of these cords as such (somewhat edited): 

"The braid here measures 19 cm including one tassel of 2.5 cm, and is approx. 0.4 cm thick. It is braided from two pairs of S threads in olive green yarn and two pair of S threads in brown-red yarn. The colors wind in spirals (clockwise) down the braid...

"The green tassel is a highly felted/felted weave fabric (of unknown bond) enveloping the outermost part of it. The tassel is sewn on irregular stitches in green Z2S yarn. The round braids are sewn to the hood with both golden and dark grey-brown yarn in Z2S. Since the right side braid is not preserved in its entirety (only 6 cm is preserved) it is uncertain how long this originally was..."

Løvlid seems to think that the ties went under the chin. Other people think that they tied in the back, to adjust the way the hood fit at the back of the head and to keep the top of the hood from flopping forward onto the face.

My first braid (shown in the previous post and also the rightmost braid in the above photo) was done using the above diagram -- outermost thread goes under 2 elements and around 1, first the left than the right.

I did that again today.  (it's the second braid from the right, above)  It's nice but still slightly awkward (though less awkward than the first time).  Then I went poking around on the internet and my books.

It's possible to do this using a disk -- I think it's the very first braid in Rodrick Owens' 250 Braids book.

It's also possible to do this in the opposite way.  Instead of going under 2 elements then around and over, you can go over 2 and around and under.  It didn't seem to be all that much faster than the first method.

But I also found Laverne Waddington's description, which gave me yet another method for making this cord.

Her freehand method  (for 4 cords lined up as 1 2 3 4) is for 2 to cross over 3 and 4, 1 crosses over the cord that is now in the 2 position.   Then, 3 crosses over 2 and 1, with 4 then crossing over the cord that is now in the 3 position.  This is the middle braid in the above photo.  It's a little looser than the previous method, but a lot of that might be because it's the first time I tried it.  There's a nice rhythm to it.

She also showed a fingerlooping method, yay!  She learned it from Hilda in Potosi and Julia, (the post doesn't give further details beyond identifying them as her weaving teachers).  Since the cords on the Skjoldehamn hood are made with 2 strands per element, it is not at all impossible that they were made from fingerlooping.

Here is Waddington's tutorial on both the freehand and fingerloop methods: https://backstrapweaving.wordpress.com/tutorials/tutorial-4-strand-braid/

I first tried the method for spiral-4 braids from Ingrid Crickmore's website, which is a braid that is well known in historic (and modern) fingerloop sources.  Hmmm, close.  That's the second photo from the left.  I'm pretty sure I twisted the loops as I picked them up with the traveling finger.  The braid is pretty loose, which is partly due to using loops instead of single strands of yarn.  Crickmore says that this one needs careful tightening, so I'm sure a lot of it was just me braiding quickly without paying too much attention.

Here are Crickmore's descriptions of the spiral braids: https://loopbraider.com/2019/12/28/spirals-and-2-loops/ and https://loopbraider.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/part-2_4-loop_spiralbraid.pdf

Then I tried Waddington's method, which doesn't take any loops through any other loops.  That's it!  I tried a few variations, too, to compare.  This is shown in the leftmost braid.

The fingerloop method that seems to be equivalent to the Skjoldehamn braid is as follows.

Put loops on index fingers and ring fingers.  Have both of Color A on the left hand and both of Color B on the right hand.  (One can get different color patterns by making different choices, of course.)

Shift the loop on the right ring finger to the right middle finger.  Put the loop on the left index finger onto the right ring finger.  Use that left index finger to pick up the loop on the right middle finger.

Then do the other hand.  Shift the loop on the left ring finger to the left middle finger.  Put the loop on the right index finger onto the left ring finger, then use that right index finger to pick up the loop on the left middle finger.

Repeat.

I also tried putting the index finger loop onto the middle finger, then moving the ring finger loop to the other hand, then shifting the middle finger down.  This braid, while perfectly charming, does not give the same pattern.  You can see that in the middle of the braid pictured above.  I also did a little bit of the regular spiral loop (one loop through the other) without twisting the loop, just to double check.

When I was doing it according to the instructions from Hilda and Julia, the braid looks right and is reasonably well-tensioned.

(And now that I'm re-watching the video.....   They walk the loop from the index finger to the middle finger, place the other-hand ring finger loop on the index finger, then put the middle-finger loop on the other-hand ring finger. WELL!  Something new to try, and to see how it compares to what I've been doing.)

All of my braids were relatively short, with pretty much no obvious tension change from start to finish.  Dunno how much of that is because I've been doing this for a while, vs the shortness of the braids, vs the braid structure.

But it seems entirely reasonable that the Skjoldehamn hood ties were made using fingerlooping, with freehand braiding also being a reasonable choice.

A few questions -- the description says that the braids were done from two pairs of S threads.  Were these two single-ply yarns?  Or one plied yarn?  Or two 2-plied yarns?  The picture is fuzzy enough that I can't tell.

I wonder what color these were originally?  Brown-red and olive green could be red and yellow, orange and blue, etc.  Or brown-red and olive green, of course!

What I learned:

There are indeed several ways to do 4 loop fingerloop braids, depending on how one transfers loops from hand to hand.  I knew that about other fingerloop braids I've done, and also about other 4-loop fingerloop braids, but I don't know if I had explored ways to do this kind of braid where loops are only exchanged between two fingers rather than traveling around the entire hand.  I wonder how this will generalize to braids with more elements?  Maybe the Potosi method (on 6 strands) would work for the Hedeby braid?  Hmmm.

There are a lot of ways to make this simple 4-element braid (which I already knew -- this is a very ubiquitous world-wide braid, used in several different textile and textile-related crafts).

There are at least 3 ways to make the braid freehand, and probably several others I haven't explored yet.

Since it is possible, quick, and efficient to make this braid using fingerloop methods, it raises the odds of some or all of the other 2-strand multi-element braids on the outfit being fingerlooped, too.  Of course, they might all have been done freehand.  Or some of each.

Some blog commenters are awfully demanding.  Though tone doesn't come through in writing and some of the commenters write as if English wasn't their first language.  I'll try to be charitable.  Waddington and Crickmore are both unfailingly polite, friendly, and helpful.

I will continue to explore the Potosi and Potosi-inspired fingerloop methods to make sure they give the same structure as well as exploring other variations I might accidentally create.  I should try the disk method (I'd use a marudai if it was me, but if this is a class, they'll probably use disks.  I'll see how much of a pain it is to use an 8-slot disk.).  I'll look through my books and the 'net to see what else I can find.  And I'll make sure the fingerloop method works for the 6-strand Skjoldehamn braids.  I'm nearly positive it does, but heck, I'm nearly positive about a lot of things that turn out to be totally wrong.  

I have plenty of ideas for teaching a class or two.  Or more.

Edited to add -- photo will go in later.  But I tried the Potosi fingerloop method again, both the video version (move index finger loop to middle finger) and my version (move ring finger loop to middle finger).  They have the same kind of structure.  My version is a little tighter.  The video version is a little easier to keep track of in terms of what move needs to happen next.  And the video version spirals Z while my version spirals S.  I'll confirm that tomorrow in case I did something else like mix up the thread color placement.