Andean-style braiding progress since the last post

There's not much progress, honestly, but I am doing things at spare moments.

I finished the zigzag braid.  I like it and feel like I'm slowly getting better at the physical movements and am understanding more of the theory behind it.

Then I started a new braid.  This braid has one side twisting clockwise and the other side twisting counterclockwise, to make a braid that is a straight square instead of a spiral.  This is a pretty common braid that can be made in several ways.

I wanted to try this braid to see if I could match the braiding pattern on a photo of a sling from the Silk Road area (in Asia) that I saw in an online museum archive.  I'm not quite there yet but I am getting to practice a couple of new things.

It's an intentional pattern design so I have to keep track of which strand goes where and when.  Also, the colors are aligned vertically rather than spiraling, which means alternating the twisting directions on the N/S versus the E/W sides.  And one side is all the same color, so I have to keep track of which thread is the lower vs the upper, the left set of threads vs the right, and so on.  One additional thing is that this is in a fairly thick cotton yarn; dunno if that adds anything to the complexity but it is different from doing it in a fairly thick acrylic yarn.

As with other braids I've tried, I started in the middle, braiding the square braid with 4 strands (3 white and 1 green).  Then I joined the ends together into a loop, and continued downwards with 8 strands.

My braid isn't perfect but it's getting better as I make various mistakes, realize what's going on, and then try to improve.

In addition to looking through Adele Cahlender's book on Andean Sling Braiding, and through Roderick Owen's books, I also used Jean Leader's explanations from this page on her website: https://www.fascinatingbraids.com/sling.html and in particular, her instructions on Sling Braids with Spirals and Stripes.

I'm not sure what's next.  I do want to make a few hemp slings and share them with my friends.

Everything else is on the to-do list, too.  But life is busy, and other things often take priority.  Although I do fun things when I have a chance, I don't always end up with something interesting to photograph or write about.

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.

Andean/Tibetan-style braiding in the fist and other sling-related baby steps

No pics yet, but I'm starting to learn how to do this, yay!

I started with 8 strands (of acrylic worsted weight yarn) folded in half, which is probably slightly more complicated than it needed to be, but it's giving me a lot of good info on what not to do and why.

My baby braid is very uneven.  Hopefully it'll be a lot better by the time I'm done.

I used 4 different colors -- one color each for lower N/S, upper N/S, lower E/W, and upper E/W.  That way, it's easier to keep track of each level and what it's doing.  I'm doing the same moves each time and am getting a square braid with vertical stripes.  I'm not fully sure why it's not spiraling like it seems to do in a lot of Youtube videos, but it looks about right compared to my in-print resources and according to what my brain thinks is happening.  Or maybe not.  I guess this is one of the things that will become obvious eventually.

One I finish mangling this braid, I'll retreat to 4 strands folded in half (2 threads per side instead of 4) and try again.

I do understand the underlying theory of having upper and lower threads, with the lower threads being the ones that move.  I understand the idea of crossing the strands clockwise or counterclockwise, and I also understand rotating 90 degrees to do each side in turn.  I'm sure there's a lot I don't understand yet, and probably am not even aware of not understanding.  But that's what this kind of learning is all about, right?

I'm getting comfortable with holding the braid in my fist along with the threads that are not to be bothered during the current braiding step.

I liked the starting method, which I saw somewhere I can't remember but is probably universally known and I just didn't know it.  Lay down the lower N/S threads, then the lower E/W threads, then the upper N/S threads, and finally the upper E/W threads.  I used a piece of thread to hold the cross in place for the first few moves.  One starts with braiding the lower N/W threads and goes from there.  The threads will not be locked into place for a round or two so it's possible to adjust where the middle is.

I will probably show a pic of my baby braid when it's done, baby missteps and all.

One of the goals, obviously, is to be able to make Andean and Tibetan style braided slings, in addition to making cool braids in general.

The braided sling I wrote about in the previous post is keeping me entertained.  I need something heavier to toss around -- cat toys don't have sufficiently predictable aerodynamic properties.  But not too heavy, since my accuracy is still garbage and I don't want to break anything with a poorly-aimed projectile.  What I really need is to find someone who is already a decent slinger to give me some good feedback.

My next bast-fiber sling might be with a 5-strand pigtail/herringbone braid.  I'll probably do the same basic design.  I do need to double-check how to split or join the braids at the pouch since I think it's slightly more complicated than doing it with a 3-strand braid.  After that, I might start experimenting with different ways to add a sling pouch.  Eventually, of course, I'll start tapering the various parts -- heavier near the pouch, perhaps more slender by the end of the release cord.  Not all historic slings do that but some do.

So many fun things to learn and play with!  (Netting!  Sprang!  More fingerloop braiding!  More tablet-weaving!  More inkle-weaving!  Kumihimo/marudai fun!  Etc.  So much etc.)