A 9-strand braid from the paper on Lieto Ristonpelto Grave 86

This is a 9-strand braid that is shown in the paper about Lieto Ristonpelto Grave 86.  It has a few errors, but that's OK; it's a learning piece.  As I wrote in the previous post on something from this paper, the source is here:  https://muinaistutkija.journal.fi/article/view/138060/91515 which is "Liedon Ristinpellon haudan 86 nauhat -- uusia havaintoja ja ennallistuksia" by Jenni Sahramaa, Krista Wright, Maikki Karisto & Mervi Pasanen.  I think this is the source: Muinaistutkija 4/2023: 39–62

I can't quite tell if this braid is an artifact in the grave, or if it's a general example showing how to recognize twill braids and their innate structure.  I'll have to translate more of the paper to see.  There's definitely a similar style of braid that was found in the grave, though it has 21 strands and the one above has 9.

There are a lot of these twill-like braids out there, with various over-2-under-2 configurations.

It took me a few minutes to work from the diagram and figure out the easy/obvious way to braid it.  That's because I'm still a noob.

Here's the original diagram from Maikki Karisto (p. 43):

So....  There are many ways to do this, some of which are more fiddly than others and/or don't give the right color progression.

The easy way is probably incredibly obvious to anyone who does a lot of braiding.

This is done with an odd number of strands.  And the element always goes from the outside to the middle.

One side has 5 strands and one side has 4.

On the side with 5 strands:  Take the outer element.  It goes over 2 elements, then under 2 elements, and drop it in the middle (it's now on the other half of the braid).

Repeat on the other side, since it's now the side with 5 strands.

Etc.

I did use the pic to set up the braid so that the color progression would be the same.

The 21-strand braid later in the paper is made the same way -- with 21 strands total, one side has 10 and one side has 11 strands.  The side with 11 strands takes the outermost element over 2, under 2, over 2, under 2, over 2, then drops it in the middle, so that the other side is now the side with 11 strands.

And yes, this generalizes to just about all odd numbers.  It can be over/under different numbers of strands, of course -- both of the above braids are a multiple of 4 + 1, so the over 2 under 2 pattern fits neatly into the number of strands.  It can be done with an even number but the middle gets slightly fiddly since it's gonna be inherently asymmetric -- see the braid from Hedeby Apron Dress Fragment for an example with 6 strands.

So I am very pleased with myself that this all seems nicely obvious now.

Other than that, I'm doing a bit of tablet weaving (destined to be a gift) and contemplating what else I'm in the mood to do.