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.

Yet another novice level post on Balearic-style slings and Andean-style braiding

Zigzags!  I've done a zig and a zag and have started the next reversal.  I'm trying to do about six repeats between reversals, though I'm not keeping track all that closely.  My consistency is improving, yay!  And I think my understanding is improving, too.  I guess I'll find out as I keep braiding, start the next braid, etc.

I've also made another sling using the same instructions and methods as last time.  Hmmm, the sling is a bit less than a meter long, so I do think I'll make the next one longer.  The first one is also a bit less than a meter long.  This second one has a slightly longer pouch but a slightly shorter finger loop.  The release cord is about an inch longer than the retention cord (when I fold everything in half around the middle of the pouch).  I had thought the two would look and feel a bit different from each other, but no, they don't!  So I guess I have a ways to go before I'm content with the consistency of the braiding.  Or maybe this is good enough and I'm too picky.

I might soak this one to see if that makes a difference in how it looks, whether it stretches out or evens up, etc.

Dunno what I'll make next.  Maybe do this one again, but maybe a bit longer and maybe with 5 strands instead of 6.  Or 10 instead of 6.  Or try a braided sling with a woven pouch.  I guess I'll see what inspiration strikes.

I'm also starting to feel like I want to start some tablet weaving projects.  I'm not sure how much longer it'll be until I can set up my little weaving area again.  The sling-braiding and the fist-braiding don't take up much room and can be done anywhere.  For various reasons, weaving takes up more space and needs a dedicated spot where I can walk away for a few hours or a few days and things can be resumed without too much trouble.

I believe that's it for me today.

More sling chatter (and a new braid)

I showed my first sling to someone who knows how to use a sling.  This person confirmed that it looked and acted like a perfectly reasonable sling, yay.  This person usually makes slings by attaching paracord to a sling pouch made of duct tape.  I love that slings are so low-tech with so many ways to make them from whatever convenient items are in your local environment.

I've started another Andean in-the-fist braid.  I tried with 8 strands (4 strands folded in half) first.  It was difficult for me to see which was the lower and which was the upper strand.  So I cut another set of strands, and I'm doing another braid the same way I did the first.  It's going well.  I'll probably start zig-zagging soon, and then, depending on how much yarn is left when I get tired of that, will try some other variations.  At some point I will return to 8-strand braids!  Though it amuses me that the 16-strand braid is easier to learn on.

I've also tried a new-to-me braid.  I'm pretty sure I've done something very similar using a different technique.

It's from a youtube video on making a sling.  It's in Spanish, so they of course use the local terminology of Honda or Waraka.  Here's part 1, which shows the braid and the first half of the sling's construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMJAAkhHcZE and here's part 2, which shows the woven split pouch and the rest of the sling's construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw1chCl6fXs&t=616s

The finger loop, made with 4 strands, is the standard 4-stranded cord made all around the world.  I like this particular method, where diagonally opposite strands twist past each other, alternating the twist direction.

Then it's joined, and the new braid is a braiding technique I've not done before.  It's a 4-strand braid (each strand has two pieces of yarn).  I'm pretty sure I've done this braid structure on a marudai and also through fingerlooping.  But this is a freehand braid, and it's kind of cool-looking and fun to do.

Not that I'm perfect at it or anything.

The video demonstrates the sling construction using a fairly thick single-ply yarn.  Interesting.

I wonder if I should do a track plan and compare it to the other braids I believe this resembles?

The braid is slightly elastic, though more so in compression than in tension.

I only used enough yarn to play around with the braid rather than doing a full sling.

The split pouch is one of the styles I see in the books (and websites and videos) on Andean slings I have access to.  I'm looking forward to trying it when I decide to make that style of pouch on a sling.

I wonder what the braid would be like if I use more than 4 braiding elements?  Also, will I get faster with time, and how will that compare with other braiding techniques?  The braid in the video was secured at the top, while I was randomly holding onto it while braiding.  Maybe I'd be faster if it was hooked to something.

I have no idea whether this is a traditional technique or a more modern shortcut.

My stash of random acrylic is getting low.  I also use it for charity knitting and share it with another charity knitter/crocheter.  We're both fairly productive; there's not much left.  My second in-the-fist braid is using different colors because some of the skeins of yarn I used in the first braid are now with my friend, being turned into charity hats.

The demo/teaching thing

I did the demo/teaching thing referred to in the last post.  Most people took their braids, but a few were left behind, or were ones I did as part of teaching and demoing.

I mostly taught people the 5-strand unorthodox fingerloop braid, A-fell.  (though it was kind of slentre-like in that it was easiest to go through the middle finger loop on the way to the ring finger loop by holding my hands mostly palm-downwards rather than palms-facing)

For a few young children, I did twisted-loop cords with them.  One slightly older child learned the 7-strand fill-the-gap disk braid.  (I had a pile of disks with me for just that purpose)

A few people already had done fingerloop braiding, so we had fun with 5-loop orthodox braids (square, flat, and split/double), 7-loop orthodox braids (square and flat), 7-loop unorthodox braids, and the 7-loop pigtail braid done as a V-fell braid (load up 4 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other, and the empty little finger grabs the index finger loop of the other hand).  We also did a 4-loop loop-exchange braid, and I tried playing around a bit with various unorthodox 7-loop braids though none turned out so well that I needed to write them down.

As you can see from the above photos, people had fun choosing different colors to see what would happen.  With the unorthodox braids, sometimes the back side (the one that looks interwoven) is more interesting than the front side (the one that looks like Vs).

I also got to spin a bit, on both wheels and spindles.  Someone had some raffia and shared it around so we could all make some cordage (twist one side and fold it over/under the other side).  And as always I had my knitting with me and got a fair amount of knitting done.

It was fun, both the teaching and the hanging out with other people who enjoy playing with fiber.

My weaving area is still unavailable, so I haven't done much else in the way of narrow wares this month, at least not so far.  All the stuff mentioned in my last post is still on my want-to-do list.  We'll see what happens.

One of my feline weaving assistants has passed away.  She was old and it was sudden.  I'll miss her.  Yes, even her deeply non-helpful weaving assistance.

Thoughts for an upcoming demo/teaching thing (braiding)

My tablet-weaving area is still unavailable, thus no tablet-weaving or other narrow wares this past month.  I did do some real weaving on a rigid heddle loom.  I'm sure my experience with band weaving (tablet, inkle, heddle, etc.) helped as I did my first beginner-ish project.  If/when I do more weaving, I can add some narrow wares to use as handles and trim and what-not.

I've been asked to be part of a demo this weekend.  Specifically, I've been asked to demo/teach braiding, and in particular, fingerloop braiding.  I'll be in the family crafts area, so I'll be doing quick one-on-one teaching to people of all ages, plus or minus a bit of whatever I want to demo when I don't have customers to teach.

Hmmm.

This calls for the standard, most common/famous fingerloop braid, right?  The 5-loop unorthodox A-fell braid!  It's pretty easy to learn, not much to wrap your brain around.  The hardest part is the finger dexterity as you walk the loops.

Put loops on the index, middle, and ring finger of one hand, and the middle and ring finger of the other.  Use the empty index finger to go through the middle-finger loop on the other hand and pick up the ring finger loop.  Walk the loops down on that hand, and repeat with the other index finger.  Etc.  It doesn't matter if the loops are taken reversed or non-reversed.  Well, with the usual caveats about bicolor loops, I suppose, or the other subtle differences in the braid's structure or appearance.  But the braid looks roughly the same either way and it doesn't do anything weird like fall apart or become two braids.

For people for whom that is too complicated, we can do the 3-loop variation.

What I like about the above braid (in addition to its near-universal prevalence) is that it is relatively bomb-proof, i.e., you'll end up with SOME kind of braid, and also that it generalizes very easily.  With your index finger of one hand, go through the loop next to the loop on the smallest finger on the other hand and pick it up, then walk the loops and repeat with the other hand.  That works whether it's 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. loops.

I might bring discs with me to teach the 7-strand fill-the-gap braid, too.  Or even the 8-strand kongo-gumi braid.

I should have some random demo braids on display, as well.  Plus maybe make sure I remember how to do several other kinds of braids if I get bored, either for demo or to teach.  Other variations on a 5-loop braid, of course.  Maybe one of the loop-transfer braids (the 4-loop, probably), since that's fairly easy to teach.

Should I pre-cut yarn in addition to having some for others to cut their own lengths with?  Should I do this in the context of making a project such as a small bracelet?  Or not, and suggest using the braid as a bookmark or keyring attachment or small tie, etc.?

I should probably also re-read a bit on the history of cordage so I can spout a few facts and what-not at people.

I might want to bring a hand-out, taped down, that people can take pics of if they want info on links to good websites and other resources for learning.

Should I bring silly things such as a sprang project?  Plus my knitting, of course.  The inkle loom is probably too fragile to be out in public (i.e. too easy for people to break or steal).

I want to practice some in-hand Andean-style braiding at some point (in addition to everything else I want to do), so that's another potential project for me to bring to entertain myself with.  Hmmm...  is that a possible method that could have been used by people doing the common 4-strand sennit/braid?  Or does it not generalize as easily?  Is the braid easier to make going up from the hand, or down from a tie-on point?

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I also wanted to mention that Noemi Speiser has passed away.  She was 99, I believe -- a good, long, productive life. Her contributions to our knowledge of historic braiding and braiding techniques are immense.  I've learned a lot from her publications and from the people she educated and inspired, and I have plenty more to learn as I continue to explore the world of braiding and other narrow wares, both woven and not.

https://trauer.nzz.ch/traueranzeige/noemi-speiser

Blue and white tablet-woven cord

There's over 5 yards of cordage in the pile in the photo above.  It's straight off the tablets, so it will probably shrink some.  The spirals get straightened out while weaving, and then relax after the weight is off.

It went quickly enough but I was very tired of it by the end.

Pre-blocking -- 186" long, about 3/8" wide.  Six tablets, 4-threaded, all with \ orientation.  Each tablet has one color (i.e. all 4 threads are the same color) -- white, blue, blue, blue, white, white.  The weft is also white.  I wanted white tablets as tablet #1 and #6 so it would hide any weft bloops.

As usual, I wove forward for a while, with the weft going from right to left.  Then, when the twist build-up started getting annoying, I switched, weaving backwards with the weft going from left to right.  The shuttle always went under the band to turn the flat piece into a tube.

It always amuses me how the weft direction, turning direction, and tablet orientations interact to create spirals (either strong or weak spirals) or straight stripes.

It was hard to keep the cord from slipping out of the clamps while weaving.  For a while, I was using a round turn and two half-hitches, but that got boring and it was kind of fiddly to adjust when I was advancing the warp.  Also, I might have used more weight/tension than the cord really needed.

I like it.  Of course.  Though I'm very glad it's done.

This is destined as a gift, which is why it's so long.  That's what was requested by the recipient.

After this, I have another couple of gift bands I've been asked to make.

The first sprang project -- a small bag

I have complete my very first sprang project and I am very pleased with myself.  It's a simple bag, very much following the project guidelines that are in Carol James' workshop that she did for the Braids and Bands mailing list.

Much was learned.

I used some Sugar and Creme cotton yarn I found in the depths of my oddballs stash.    I rigged up my little PVC tablet weaving loom into a simple frame.  I used 24 ends (12 pairs).

This is very much the most basic interlinking pattern.  Each row is 1 s 1, with the rows staggered.  In other words, one row is 1 x 1.  The other row starts with 2 x 1, has the middle be 1 x 1, and finishes with 1 x 2.

It spiraled quite a bit, of course, since all the twisting was in one direction.  But after sewing it up and scrunching it up, it seems a lot better.  I haven't yet blocked it so don't know how that will affect things.

Once I ran out of room in the middle, I finished it using the method in the handouts -- tie a thread around the middle, twice (in a figure 8), knot it, and then use the ends to sew up each side, matching the edges.  I wasn't particularly neat with that, alas, but hopefully it'll be better and closer to invisible than it was this time.  For a while, I was pretty sure I hadn't aligned the edges properly.  But it worked out, whew, and even if it's not perfect, it's not obvious.

I did a twisted-cord for a drawstring, running it through the top loops and then tying an overhand knot at one end.

It looks rather peculiar but it is indeed stretchy!  It'll fit around a water bottle.  The length and width aren't too different from how they looked on the loom -- about 12" long and about 2" wide.  My gauge is relatively consistent and I like the fabric that was created.

This very much has the vibe one would expect from a First Project.  But it is a successful project.  Now on to project #2...   I'm not sure what it will be, but my guess is another bag.

I'm having fun reading things about sprang by a variety of authors and also checking out whatever I can find on the 'net.  So many possibilities...

Musings on the trousers from Turfan (Tarim Basin)

I can't remember exactly how this started.  But I started watching this video with a friend, about the world's oldest known trousers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl7siWwzibs&t=71s&ab_channel=DeutschesArch%C3%A4ologischesInstitut

I already knew a bit about this, mostly because there was a fair amount of info that came out several years ago.  But I love the topic so it's always great to watch and read and learn more.

These are the trousers from the body of a man who was buried in Turfan, in the Tarim Basin, roughly 3000-ish years ago (13th to 10th century BCE).  The pants are carefully designed, woven, and constructed, and appear to have been created to be comfortable for someone who rode a horse.  Horse-related artifacts are found in the graves in this area, so it's not an unreasonable hypothesis.

I am fascinated by this part of the world, and the textiles are one of the things I'm fascinated by.

The pants are indeed very interesting.  They show that the artisans of the time were very skilled in a multitude of techniques.

Most of the cloth is woven in twill, similar to modern blue jeans.  The people here were weavers of wool plaid twill, which is also found among the weavers of Hallstatt and other Celtic weavers.  Which of course is interesting and the subject of much excitement and speculation from those who get excited and speculative about these sorts of things.  These pants have areas with stripes and tapestry-woven-like color patterns.

There are decorative bands near the ankles and knees (or lower legs).  They almost look like tablet weaving from a distance, but a closer view shows that they are not.  The video says that they are made from a twined technique that is similar to the New Zealand technique of taniko.  This is also the same twining technique used for the Native American Columbia Plateau baskets!  Not that this is a terribly revolutionary technique, but it is still very cool.  In other words, this is not evidence that these groups were all in contact with each other, but rather, that this technique has been independently re-invented many times.

It is always interesting how people take the same ideas and use them in different applications.  Even the Columbia Plateau baskets show some of this, with the original baskets made from strips of plant leaves and stems, and modern basket weavers often using commercially spun and manufactured cords and yarn.  But here are the exact same techniques used for weaving baskets and also for weaving cloth.

I have no idea why the creators of the Turfan man's pants decided to twine decorative patterns at various points along the warp.  Each piece of the pants is thought to have been woven as one piece, so it's not like the decorative band was sewn to the twill; it was made as part of the fabric creation process.  I don't know why there are several areas with ornamental embellishments -- do they have a utilitarian purpose?  Some other purpose (such as to mark the owner or weaver in some way, or to honor deities or avert the evil eye)?  Mostly ornamental because why not?

Here's another paper about the pants, linked from Carol James' blog: https://www.spranglady.com/uploads/7/7/0/8/77084287/17_2014_beck_et_al._qi_348_224-235.pdf

The photos are pretty decent, though not quite as detailed as I would like.  The paper also gives schematics should I wish to make my own version of these pants.  Assuming they were designed to be worn in real life, and aren't just some kind of funerary clothes or something someone had lying around or something.

Why Carol James?  Because there are sprang artifacts, and she is often the expert who is brought in to assist with that.  Yes, of course I want to make copies of those artifacts.  Which I suppose means that I'll need to learn sprang.  And an aside, though a lot of people already know this -- some of the oldest nalbinding artifacts yet discovered have been found in this region, though probably not in this particular grave.

Anyway.

The seams are covered with braids, and there's a drawstring at the waist.  Narrow wares!  And thus a proper topic for this blog.

The braids are the very common 4-strand braid that I was nattering on about a few months ago.  Some use two colors and some only one, I believe, though it's possible the apparent one-colored braid used two dark colors that look similar in the technical paper's photographs and/or that have degraded over the years.  The pic below is a two-color braid.

The drawstring is a standard twisted cord.  I think the drawstrings have been loosely knotted together with a slip knot but I'm not 100% sure yet.  The ends of the drawstrings aren't well preserved, but it kind of looks like one of the better preserved ends was dipped in something to keep it from unraveling.  Or maybe there used to be a knot or something and it's now gone, and the ends are kind of goopy from their slow deterioration over the millennia.

An aside -- there's also a paper linked from Carol James' site that talks about the dyes: https://www.spranglady.com/uploads/7/7/0/8/77084287/16_2014_kramell_et_al._qi_348_214-223-2.pdf

This paper analyzed the dyes and found chemicals consistent with madder for the red and indigo for the blue.  They concluded that the madder was probably local and the indigo was likely to have been imported since the local area was great for growing madder but more marginal for growing indigo-bearing plants.  Dunno, though -- the area had a ton of international trade, but also, it might well have been possible to grow both madder and, say, Japanese indigo locally.  The authors found evidence of red, blue, and brown dyes, but no yellow, interestingly enough.  I don't know how carefully they looked for it, or if the dye chemicals would have degraded, or if these graves didn't contain yellow textiles, or if the locals had something against yellow and green (green being an overdye of indigo/yellow or vice versa).  There was evidence that mordants were used for the dyeing, and the authors felt that these too could be acquired locally.

But back to the drawstrings!  Or actually, time to talk about the spinning.  Everything seems to be made from singles.  Many of the singles were spun S and some were spun Z, though it is possible that some of the photos are reversed.  For the drawstring, the braids, and the sewing thread, the artisans used several strands of this single-ply yarn rather than plying them.

The resolution of the photos is not quite good enough for me to see the weaving.  Are both warp and weft single-ply yarns?  Is there a consistent direction for warp or weft, i.e. are the both spun the same direction, different directions, or random?  And so on.

The paper on the dyes gives some spinning and plying info from various textiles they analyzed -- some S-singles, some Z-singles, and some sZ and some zS 2-ply yarns. So, it's not fully consistent.  And that implies that there were a lot of spinners around to acquire yarn from, probably.  In general, a spinner tends to have a preferred spinning direction, so the presence of S and Z singles implies more than one spinner.  Unless maybe there were rules or superstitions about which way to spin and thus it might vary, maybe.  I'm also interested in seeing how consistent the yarn thicknesses tend to be.

I haven't even touched on the clothing construction in any serious way since I mostly wanted to write about the braids and drawstrings and the twined decorative panels with a little about the spinning of the threads/yarns that made up the braids and drawstrings.

So all of the above is kind of stupid and unjointed.  But I still wanted to get my thoughts down while I remembered them.  I've probably forgotten some already, not that this is any great loss to humanity.  I need to re-read some of the old Silk Road stuff I have, and maybe go see what new things have been published since I last read about these topics.  I might add more references to this post, or, if I am so inspired, write another stupid and unjointed post.

And maybe I need to make some of these pants, or at least the braids.  Reminder to myself -- find out more about the braids and tassels briefly mentioned in the paper about dyes.  And think a bit more seriously about learning sprang, though maybe I want to explore more new-to-me techniques in braiding and tablet-weaving first.

This Year's Final February Fingerloop Braid Post

At least I think it's the final fingerloop braid post of February 2025.

Ingrid Crickmore says that this pattern looks very striking as a square braid.  She's correct!  Find it here: https://loopbraider.com/2015/10/18/flat-6/.  It's braid "6FL-5. Piole + W".

I used my usual Aunt Lydia's #10 crochet cotton on this one, to make a finer braid than the braid made from rug warp.  I followed Crickmore's colors and patterns.  La and Lb had dark red loops and Lc had a black loop.  Ra and Rb had white loops and Rc had a black loop.

I did this as a V-fell braid and started braiding with my right hand.  The braiding sequence is: little finger on the right hand goes through all the loops on the left hand and picks up the left index finger loop by hooking over the top (reversing it).  Walk the left hand loops.  Left ring finger goes through all the loops on the right hand and picks up the right index finger loop by hooking over the top (reversing it).  Walk the right hand loops.  And repeat.

It reminds me of a king snake, with the black between the red and the white.  The colors don't show up amazingly well in my photo.  It's really very nice and dramatic and colorful.

I made two braids with this pattern, to give as a gift.  I didn't measure the braids but they're the usual 14-20" long or so.  I tried to arrange the braids so that both sides can be seen in my pic.  That is one small critique of Crickmore's site -- she usually (but not always) only shows the top side of the braid, i.e., whichever side has the coolest looking color pattern.

The finer the thread, the longer it takes to make the braid.  Of course.  I only dropped one loop per braid, and each time it was very easy to pick up and continue braiding without an obvious blip in the braid.

I'm not sure which braids I'll do next.  I do like these cute color-patterned braids.  But it's also fun to learn new braiding structures and techniques, and to continue practicing the braids that I don't do that smoothly yet.

A quick little post

I may add more to this post later.

This is the same triangle braid I did a few days ago -- 5 loops, V-fell, unorthodox (ring finger on one hand goes through middle finger loop of other hand and picks up the index finger loop of the other hand, hooking over the top).  I used 3 loops of light purple and 2 loops of dark purple.  I made two braids, to be given as a gift.  The finished braids are each about 20" long (not including the knot and fringe, of course).  I'll tighten the knots and trim the fringe before they're given away.

The braiding seems a little loose, which is interesting.  Is it the cotton rug warp?  Is it how I'm tensioning the braid?  Is it always like this and I usually don't notice?

The pic shows both the top and bottom sides of the braids.

I'm probably going to do a few more braids for giving away, with a variety of braiding structures and color patterns.  If I get more done today I'll add them to this post.  Otherwise there will be a new post later this week.  Crickmore's website is full of great inspiration.

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I did finally warp up and start an Icelandic missed hole tablet woven band, yay!!!  I started by doing all the early exercises that Wollny includes in the first part of the chapter.

Background pattern, yup.  This is basically the Sulawesi background done in 3-hole.

Then a few patterns that are simple diagonals-type patterns where the holes are there but don't form the tabby-ish pattern.

Then we start with waffling, first with the holes, then with the color thread (which means floats), and with each of the background threads (before and after the holes, and yes, also floats).  Motifs are filled with different textures in the center -- various floats and double-face and background pattern, etc.

There's also a little tacking stitch, to pop up a thread from a different hole to tack down some of the long floats, or just to do it because it's ornamental.

Wollny recommends doing it by turning two tablets one-eighth turn, to bring up a lower thread and drop the higher thread.  I found this kind of messy when looking for the shed.

If it's only one tack, it's relatively straightforward to lift the lower threads and drop the higher threads for that one row.  For several tacks, it gets annoying.

These actually are very similar to the Finnish half-turns, and in the end, that's what I found to be the easiest.  Do another turn on the two tablets involved in each tack (either up or down), throw the weft, then bring them back to their original orientation before going on to the next move.

So that was all fun -- seeing how Wollny approaches this technique and some of the variations and constraints she considers when designing her own.

Now that I've done the sampler patterns, I'll choose random stuff from Wollny's charts for a while, and quite probably for the rest of the band.  If I get bored or run out of patterns I like before I run out of warp, I'll switch to 3-thread Sulawesi motifs or play around with diagonals charts or twill charts or other techniques that look good with 3 threads.

I like how this technique looks, and I like how it's both related to float work and combined with float work.  And now I've done a bit of float work, too.  Well, floats that are deliberate.

The waffling technique is often used in conjunction with brocading, but I won't be doing that for this band.

It's interesting to me how this feels different from 2-thread, at least the way it's presented in this book and possibly in archaeological/historical examples.  They each have a characteristic texture, which is a lot of it, I think.  Also, the tablets are relatively stable without much effort, unlike 2-hole tablets.

I'm using 12 pattern tablets along with two 4-threaded edge tablets per side, for 16 tablets total.  As usual, the motifs are a bit elongated, though I'm trying not to tighten up too much on the weft when I throw it while still trying to keep it firmly packed down into the shed both before and after I turn the cards.

Yet more 4-element braid experiments

This might be my final post on this particular braid.  Or not -- you never know!

The above is a fingerlooped braid.  It spirals Z for part of the way, then S, then back to Z.

For the method where you shift the index finger to the middle finger, then pick up the other-hand ring finger and put the middle finger loop onto the other-hand ring finger...

If Color A starts out on the index fingers and Color B starts out on the ring fingers, it will spiral Z.  If Color A starts out on the left hand and Color B starts out on the right hand, it will spiral S.

You can shift from S to Z or vice versa by waiting until the colors are arranged the way you like, then repeating a move.   So...  you do the first exchange (either right or left hand), which brings the yarns into the other configuration.  Then repeat that first exchange instead of doing the second exchange.  Keep going from there, as before, until you want to shift the other way.

I haven't tried it yet, but my guess is that it's the opposite for the version of this braid where one moves the ring finger loop to the middle finger, then swaps the other-hand index finger loop onto the ring finger with the middle finger loop going to the other-hand index finger.  That's because with the first method, the index finger loop goes under the ring finger loop, while it goes over the ring finger loop in the second method.  With both (if I'm thinking about it correctly), the switch/twist between index and ring fingers goes clockwise when the right index finger swaps with the left ring finger, and counterclockwise when the left index finger swaps with the right ring finger.

I tried doing the loop exchange in one move but I wasn't dexterous enough to be able to switch loops without one going through the other and without dropping something.  So the two-step method works best for me so far.  (Transfer loop to middle finger, then swap the two loops pretty much at the same time.)

So.  How was the Skjodehamn hood braid done?

The argument for fingerlooping -- it's a short braid, made from two strands of yarn per braiding element, and fingerlooping is pretty fast.

The argument against fingerlooping -- it is not clear if any of the other braids are fingerlooped.  They might be, but they might not be.  In general (with a lot of exceptions), I'd expect to see some 5-loop fingerloop braids somewhere in this outfit, since in general (with a lot of exceptions), odd-number fingerloop braids and especially 5-loop braids, are so common in areas that do fingerlooping.  On the other hand, most of the braids are made from two strands per element, which is an argument for strong consideration of fingerlooping.  One more argument against fingerlooping -- this braid is not mentioned in any of the medieval braiding manuals, as far as I know.  Though I don't know if it would have been considered too simple to record.

Whipcording -- there is no evidence for the existence of this method at this time.  It's possible that long lengths were wound onto sticks rather than heavy bobbins, but that grades into the freehand braiding methods.  Whipcording (hanging the braid from a hook, then passing the bobbins back and forth, preferably with two people) is pretty fast, especially for making long lengths of cord.  The argument against this method being used, in whatever form, is that these are short ties, hardly worth the effort of setting up anything with bobbins.

Disk/stand -- again, no evidence for the existence of this method at this time, and the arguments are similar to the ones about whipcording.  It's definitely possible -- maybe a small table or tablet (for tablet weaving) with a hole in the middle could have been used, with a counterweight for the growing braid and sticks or small bobbins holding the cords.  But again, it would be better for longer cords.  It's an idea for portability, though.  I'll have to think about it.  A plain tablet (or square piece of something with a hole in the middle) would be easier than moving threads in and out of slots.  It could be pretty fast and would require only one person.

Freehand/in-the-hand -- This is a low-tech way to do this braid, pretty easy to rediscover anytime you need to do so.  There are several ways to think about how you do it.  It's a little slower than fingerlooping, but requires very little set-up or thinking about it.  It too is very good for shorter braids, and entirely possible for longer braids if one has a way of dealing with the long ends (such as wrapping them around a stick or small bobbin).

Other methods?  I don't know!  I'm still a wee small braider, with so much left to learn and understand.

Of the ones above, freehand and fingerloop are the most plausible.  In my opinion.  Given my current level of ignorance, which is pretty high.  My guess is that the person who sewed the hood (and/or the person who wanted the ties) might well have grabbed a bit of yarn and banged out the cord right then and there.  It is possible, of course, that there was already a much longer length of this cord hanging around (done on a disk or through whipcording or freehand) and they just whacked off a couple of short pieces of it to make the ties.

I don't have a good enough pic of the cords, nor do I have sufficient knowledge about braiding or about the culture that made these specific braids, to rule out the various possibilities.

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I knew I had done a fingerlooping version of the 4-element braid before, and I tracked it down, yay!

It's the Makusua Maize Blossom braid of the Guajiro Indians (from northeast corner of Columbia, in South America), and it's in L-MBRIC 10, shown in the Illustrated Instruction Series (no. 10, of course, from 2007).  This one is similar to the Potosi method except that loops are swapped from hand to hand first, then shifted back to the original finger.

So, loops are on B and D fingers (calling them Lb, Ld, Rb, and Rd).  Ra takes ld.  Ld takes rb.  La takes rd.  Rd takes lb.  Shift loops a to b on both hands.  Tighten the structure every other step.  

They give the three basic color patterns that can be done with two colors.  For Z spirals -- Color A on both b fingers, color B on both d fingers.  For S spirals -- Color A on one hand, color B on the other hand.  For vertical (as with the above) -- the diagonals are the same (i.e. the b finger of one hand and the d finger of the other).

So maybe I'm not quite done with this topic.  I might try both this method and the Potosi method to see which one flows more smoothly and easily.  I've done the Makusua braid before but don't remember much about it beyond the fact that I've done it.

I don't know why I get hung up on these picky little details.  They're probably very basic to most people.  But it helps me to do and explore things, thinking about why and what.  It does help my overall understanding of the underlying principles, I guess, even if I have to do it the slow and hands-on way.

Masako Kinoshita describes the Makusua braid as "new as an L-M recipe", interesting.

See my posts from February 28, 2024 and February 29, 2024 for my first exposure to the Makusua braid.

(edited later to add -- the Makusua and Potosi methods are both quick and efficient, as is my own variation.)

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Maybe I'll move on to the six-strand Skjoldehamn braids soon.  These too were done with two strands of yarn per element.  They can be done freehand or, I believe, through fingerlooping.  There's no point to doing them with whipcording, I don't think.

I think my class is likely to be this 4-element braid from the Skjoldehamn hood as done with fingerlooping.  I'll probably show or at least talk about other ways to make the braid (freehand, disk, maybe a description of whipcording), and also encourage people to experiment with using more colors, doing other color patterns and/or monochrome cords, etc.

Or I'll do the 6-element braid, and if so, probably freehand since that way is easy to demonstrate, and it generalizes to a lot of other braids in this style.

It's interesting that most or all the braids on the outfit use even numbers.  I wonder if that means something?  Ditto for the use of two strands per braiding element for most or all of the braids.

More 4-strand braiding silliness

The rightmost braid is the one mentioned in the previous post.  The leftmost braid is a repeat of the fingerlooping methods.  Again, I tried both methods -- move the index finger to the middle finger vs move the ring finger to the middle finger.

They're pretty much identical from a braid structure standpoint -- the index and ring finger on one hand switch clockwise, and the index and ring finger on the other hand switch counterclockwise.  With one, the index finger loop goes over the ring finger loop; with the other, the ring finger loop goes over the index finger loop.

Either one can spiral S or Z; it depends on the arrangement of the colors vs how the loops switch.  Do I remember which is which?  Umm, no.  But it was obvious when I'd mess up by switching the twist directions by accident, and then switching back.  I got both S and Z spirals with each of the methods.

Too bad the contrast on the left two braids is so low, because they were very informative.  Both are in green and blue, with the fatter braid being fingerlooped and the thinner one single-strand freehand braided.

The middle one happened after I poked around on the 'net and my own books and stuff.  It's a different method than the other freehand methods I wrote about earlier, though of course they're all kind of the same and it's mostly about the way my brain understands what is going on.

For the middle one -- think of these four elements being arranged in a circle instead of flat.  Instead of 1 2 3 4, we have NW SW SE NE.   As with fingerlooping and disk braiding, we're going to swap NW and SE in one direction, and then swap NE and SW in the other.

So... cross NW over SE, then cross NE over SW.  Twist your wrists and move your fingers (and strands) as appropriate to make sure that the pairs of elements crossing each other don't interfere with the currently-passive elements or vice versa.  As with the other braids, the spiral direction (and color pattern in general) depends on the arrangement of the colors vs the direction of the crossing twists.  One can, of course, cross under rather than over, but for me, the cross-over twist of my fingers felt more natural than the cross-under.

Here's a paracord video that shows it, though with the color arrangement that leads to vertical stripes rather than a spiral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWWA6MQXGE and it can also be seen fairly well on Sally Pointer's video (the second braid, starting about halfway through the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwVXwH_w2ng

Am I done?  Maybe.  I'm probably not going to explore disk/stand braiding or whipcording because the how-to for those is pretty straightforward.  I am going to try to pay attention to figure out which color arrangements lead to which spiral direction.  It should be pretty obvious pretty quickly.

Whipcording (aka Viking whipcord or interlocking or slinging) -- as far as I know, there's no unambiguous evidence of this method being used before the 17th century.  Honestly, though, whipcording just seems to be doing this braid with wooden bobbins to hold the excess length of unbraided yarn, plus hanging it from something high so it can be worked downwards vertically, plus adding a second person if so desired to make it a game (by tossing pairs of bobbins back and forth).  It would be useful if making long lengths of cord.  But for something that's roughly 8" long, like the Skjoldehamn hood ties?  I'm thinking freehand or fingerloop since either can be done pretty spontaneously.

Dunno if and when I'll explore more 4-strand braiding stuff, such as other braid structures.  I'm also not going to track the history of these braids, because they tend to be pretty universal over time and space, going way way back.  People are clever.

So one possibility for a class is this braid, period.  I could do the fingerloop method and only that.  Or I could do fingerloop and freehand.  Or even fingerloop, freehand, and disk.  It would be in the context of the Skjoldehamn hood ties, with a general discussion of this braid throughout history.

If I did a second class, it would be the 6 strand pigtail-type braid used decoratively on the cuffs, necklines, etc., in the Skjoldehamn outfit, both freehand and fingerlooped.

So ends today's ramblings on this particular 4-strand braid structure.  Maybe.  There might well be an upcoming post on the 6 strand braid and maybe an example of the 4-strand braid showing which color placements lead to which patterns, so my poor little goldfish brain has something to return to later.

A few easy braids from the Skjoldehamn outfit

I'm probably teaching a class next month.  There are several in my rotation already, but maybe I feel like doing something new.

I've seen some interesting six-element braids in the past few months, shown to me by friends.  One is from one of the Sion knitted relic purses.  The purse my friend is knitting has what looks to be a six element square fingerlooped braid.  (I tried making it a few months ago and it seems to look like the pics, so hey, probably a good first approximation.)

Another six-element braid was shown to me by a different friend who is using braids sewn down over seams as a decorative statement, very common in certain times and places.  That friend was using ideas from the Skjoldehamn find and other similar-era finds.

I found a thesis that discussed the textiles of the Skjoldehamn find, including semi-decent pictures and also diagrams of the braids.

And off I go...

Braids are used in several places on this outfit.  The Skjoldehamn hood has a couple of 4-element braided cords used as ties.  Six-element braids are used decoratively around the cuffs and neckline.  A twelve-element braid is used as a belt and something similar is used as a drawstring for the trousers.  Plus ends of other bands are also braided, and possibly more I'm forgetting.

Most of the braids are made using doubled or tripled strands of yarn.  Doubled strands always make me suspect fingerlooping, but there's no obvious evidence (such as braid tightness being different from one end to the other).  So it's possible, but it's also possible the braids are all made in the hand, or by using disks or bobbins/whipcords or something else entirely.

I think the four element and six element braids would be reasonably easy to teach.  So I found my acrylic stash and tried them out.  I used one strand, not double stranded like I believe the originals were.  Also, the originals are made from thin wool yarn and I'm using worsted-weight acrylic.  Plus nevermind about natural dyes vs modern industrial dyes.

The bottom braid in this pic is from the hood.  It's a four-element braid.  I think it's either the same as or very similar to the ones one always sees around the world.

If the four elements are laid out as 1 2 3 4 --  element 1 goes under 2 and 3, then over 3 (to assume the new position 2); then element 4 goes under 3 and 2, and over 2 to become the new position 3.

It's a little awkward to do, so I might try going over-around-under instead of under-around-over to see if that flows better while still looking the same.

The photo of the hood tie in the thesis looks pretty much like my cords, with one end in an overhand knot and the other having loops (or maybe just ends) that are hid by a tassel cover.  Was it fingerlooped?  I'm not sure -- I'll have to see if the structure matches any of the four-element fingerloop braids I know, and then see what it looks like and how easy it is to braid compared to banging it out freehand.

The other two braids have the same structure.  One is more tightly braided and monochrome than the other, but they're identical other than that.  There are six elements.   The right hand outermost element goes over two elements into the middle.  The left hand outermost element goes over three elements (to cross the previous element) into the middle.  Repeat.  I think this type of braid is referred to as a plait, but honestly, I don't really know the current braiding terminology.  I know this one can be done as a fingerloop, but it's plenty fast as a freehand braid.

I also looked at the Hedeby apron braid, mostly because it too is a 6 element braid of a similar time and place.  That one is not fingerlooped, I don't think, since it consists of single stranded elements (of 2-ply wool), not double/triple.  This one has the rightmost element go over 2, and then the left goes under 2 and over the just-moved strand.  It has a more W like appearance (the 6 element plait above has a V like appearance).  I could do the Hedeby 6 element plait in a different class.  It's not much more complicated than the Skjoldehamn 6 element plait.

Here are the references I'm finding useful so far, more or less.  I was given links to youtube videos from my friend using braids as decorative elements over seam lines.   Videos are slow but they can help me confirm that I understand what's going on.  Or at least the video person has the same understanding or misunderstanding that I do.

2009 master's thesis: https://web.archive.org/web/20220225172743/https://kaupafar.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nye-tanker-om-Skjoldehamnfunnet.pdf

also see https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/11552101/skjoldehamn-find-pennsic-expo-conv-svcscom and https://www.medieval-baltic.us/skjold.html (this second link is more for how to make the hood, since it seems a bit different from how most of my friends make it)

Hedeby: https://clothofstars.blogspot.com/2023/08/sca-6-strand-hedeby-braid.html and https://urd.priv.no/viking/smokkr.html#ev-haithabu and of course https://blog.eibeck.de/2014/plait-from-the-hedeby-apron-dress-fragment.html

The videos are from Wyrd Kindred https://www.youtube.com/@WyrdKindred

I think there are more links out there that I've found in the past, and also more links in general.  But the above were of some use today.

Sion purse pic here: https://www.kornbluthphoto.com/SionPurse269.html  The braid really looks like a square 6, which means a square 5 on one hand and a square 7 on the other.  But I'll do more experiments later.  My friend mostly cared about the knitted motifs, which are cute, but which are more well known and studied than the cords.

I hope the above kind of makes sense and helps me figure out what I was thinking about when I went exploring and experimenting today.

One more note to myself -- my friends and I should try making a Skjoldehamn hood according to the methods in the thesis to see how it works compared to the methods my friends currently use.

It's nice to be back creating -- I've been busy these last few months.  What time and ambition I've had for creativity has mostly gone to playing in the kitchen, spinning, knitting, and gardening.

My braiding/weaving area is mostly off limits still, so I might not be able to start a new tablet woven band for another few weeks minimum.

Tubular Tablet Weaving Cord Fail

Hmm, a not-so-successful tubular tablet-woven cord.

I'm doing a cord with 5 tablets, similar to the wool cord described by Grace Crowfoot in her chapter on Narrow Wares from her Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450 book.  Five tablets, 4-threaded, all \ orientation, turn 1/4 turn each time.

Fail #1 (very minor) -- I threaded them / instead of \.  No big deal -- either flip the cards, turn them backwards at first, or spiral the weft the other direction.

Fail #2 -- I kept using the white weft thread, wondering if it would be hidden by the cord after it relaxed into a spiral.  I have an answer now.  No.  Now, this could be interesting, a little glint of something contrast-y visible within the cord.  But for this cord, it's not quite what I want.

Fail #3 -- I had to clamp the warp tight so it wouldn't slither.  But it did slither.  And either the clamp or the slithering broke several warp threads.

I give up.

I've done too much to unravel, so I'll probably cut off the already-woven length of cord and put it in my pile of samplers and learning pieces.  I'll do something else with the surviving warp threads.

For the future -- match warp and weft more carefully, and maybe take a different approach to tensioning the cord.

Dunno if I'll add a photo later.  I need to sulk for a while before deciding.

Seal Tag 5 (another tablet woven tubular cord)

The original was described in Henshall, Audrey, 1964, Five tablet-woven seal tags, Archaeological Journal 121:154-162.   But I haven't tracked down a copy of that yet.  So I'm working from the description in Phiala's (aka Sarah Goslee's) email from this website/blog: https://research.fibergeek.com/2005/02/10/tubular-tablet-weaving/

It's described as a silk cord roughly 1.5mm in diameter, multi-colored and tablet-woven, with reversals throughout.  It's the seal tag on a charter sealed by John (de Balliol), King of Scotland, to Nicholas de Haia, of the lands of Erroll, etc. Granted at Lindores, 1 August 1294.  The colors in 1964 were described as white, dark blue, salmon-pink-faded-to-buff, and pale-yellow-green-faded-to-white.  Dunno if the colors in 1294 were brighter; there are definitely dyes that would fade out over the centuries.

Well.  I had been considering adding a pattern to spiral cords, and here was one already done and described, all historic and everything.

I didn't have the proper colors in my cotton stash, so I picked some likely-ish colors from the #10 big box store crochet cotton, namely substituting orange for the salmon pink.  I charted up the pattern from the description and off I went.

It's not my favorite.  I should have realized that the little box pattern is very similar to Candace Crockett's Sample Band A.  With all the card orientations in the same direction and with the spirals, the box ends up very jagged rather than smooth.  (We won't mention the early part of the band where apparently one of the cards rotated without me noticing so that it looks even messier.)  It might have been better in a much finer thread.   Also, the dark blue is too dark and the light green is too light.  The orange is OK, though.  But then the orange/blue/white combo ends up looking like something from the Denver Broncos Paraphernalia Store.

I used a lighter weight and a finer weft (doily-knitting cotton leftovers) to see if I could decrease the weft spacing in the final cord.  I can't say that it made much difference.

The original has card 4 with a different orientation than the rest of the cards.  I tried that for a while and again, there wasn't much difference.  The spiral might be a little less tight in that area, but I don't think that was something the original weaver really could have cared about.  So I'm gonna agree with those who said that this was unintentional rather than deliberate -- either the original weaver(s) didn't notice or he/she/they didn't care.

I sometimes flipped the cards (and continued turning forward though the weft was going from left to right) and sometimes rotated them backwards, as with the last band.  Both are fine; I don't really have a preference.  The little weft bloops are still there when the spiral is to the left, but they'll disappear when I wiggle the cord.  I assume it's something about how the band is in tension while weaving and relaxes after, along with maybe pulling it less snug when the weft goes from left to right, or maybe there's some slight interaction between ply twist and cord twist.  Eh.  At least I had the sense to have white weft next to a card threaded with white.

The cord is roughly 6mm in diameter, and roughly 175cm long, before blocking and freshly done.

I learned a lot from this cord.  Dunno if I'd do it again in different colors and/or different thread.  But it had some good lessons for me.  I'd definitely make more patterned cords, but will think more carefully about motifs and colors and how they interact with the spiraling, should I choose to spiral since I can also make cords that don't.

It's kind of frustrating looking at cords and braids and what-not in museum websites, for purses and for seal tags, etc.  The sites talk about the seal.  Or the purse and its embroideries.  I want to see the braids and cords and tassels and stuff!

Also, I don't have a copy of this technical paper.  I don't know if I need it or not.  Several people have made re-creations of the 5 seal tags described within.  Some of those are on my to-do list.

This blog post lists the techniques used in the seal tags:  https://thewarpfactor.blogspot.com/2014/03/a-dead-end-on-durham-warp-transposition.html

One is an interesting double-face (with all tablets oriented the same) band with small geometric motifs.

Another one is also double-face in a checkerboard pattern, not sure if the tablets are oriented the same or alternating Z and S.  (According to this, the7-tablet blocks alternate S and Z:  https://aisling.biz/index.php/galerie/historisch/hochmittelalter/312-band-zwei-der-siegelbaender-aus-durham-gb for discussion and https://aisling.biz/images/brettchenweben/Anleitung/Durham_Seal_Tags.pdf for pattern)

One is a 3/1 twill (I think this is the one that one of the above blog posts calls a double-faced diagonal weave?).  

One is brocaded.

One is this tubular cord.  Collingwood claims that there's a seal tag which uses warp transposition, but I have no idea if that's correct or not; chances are that he's referring to a different seal tag in the Durham cathedral since he has an actual photo in his book that doesn't look like any of the above seal tags.

Hmm, someday I'll do some of the other easy tablet-woven seal tags that I can find (or chart) patterns for.  Also, the cord I just finished is starting to grow on me.  I'm not sure what I expected from it, but once I release my expectations, it's a perfectly nice cord.

I have no idea what project I'll do next.

Tubular Tablet Woven Cord

I saw one of those tablet-woven tubular cords on someone's website and suddenly decided I need to make one.  Today.  Right now.

So I did.

This pattern is seen on a purse strap of a 14th century German purse in the V&A Museum.  Apparently the chart/description is from an article in the Spring 2008 issue of TWIST, but I found it on an archive.org copy of a silkewerk.com page.

This one is 9 cards, all 4-threaded, all with the same orientation.  There are 3 cards each with red, yellow, and white.  (I picked the same colors as the original seems to be, more or less.)  The original is silk, while mine is the usual cotton.  I used #10 cotton for both warp and weft.

This is a cool pattern because you can get it to bias and thus make spirals.  When the cards are oriented \ (Z-threaded) and turned forward and the shuttle thread goes from right to left, it spirals to the right.  When the cards are oriented / (S-threaded) and the shuttle thread goes from left to right, it spirals to the left.  I assume that mixed directions don't spiral, or don't spiral as well.  One can also flip cards or turn them backwards to change the direction that the warp is twining -- warp twining direction and spiral-weft-thread direction go the same way, if I understand it correctly.

The basic concept is like I-cord in knitting -- the weft always goes in the same direction, and one tightens it to bring the edges together.  This makes a tube instead of a flat band.

The original zigzagged at random intervals, so that's what I did, too.

The cord is roughly 1/4" in diameter and roughly 63" long.

When weaving, the band is all stretched out and straight, though it wants to rotate.  As soon as the tension is off, the threads relax into spirals.  It's fun to watch.

I found that the weft tension was looser one way than the other.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe the thread ply direction also affects things?  Or it's because I turned cards backwards rather than flipping them?  The loose bits go away pretty easily if I wiggle the cord.  I was silly and used a white weft thread to connect the red and yellow.  I should have had white on one side instead of both being colorful, to minimize the little white weft blips.

This is really cute.  I will play around with colors and different numbers of tablets when I make more.

There's also an article in ATN 21 that shows a tubular cord, monochrome, on 16 tablets, but with half-turns between the weft spirals instead of quarter-turns.  I might try that someday to see what it looks like.  Assuming that it's a correct description -- sometimes the explanations evolve.

The photo of the purse is not particularly high resolution, but those sure look like fingerlooped braids coming off of the tassel.  They might even be the ends of the purse strap; I can't quite discern what's going on.  The drawstring looks like it could be a twisted cord.  I'm not sure if the braid on the sides is embroidery or a braid that's sewn on.

The museum's description is of course quite perfunctory where narrow wares are concerned.  Oh, well!

This is my first tablet-woven tubular cord.  It won't be the last.  I can now officially add this technique to my mental repertoire of cord-making methods.

Snartemo II and a 7-strand fingerloop braid sampler

Here's a little one-color 7-strand braid I was playing around with.  I tried different things along the length (with a few repeats).  Although the photo is pretty crappy, I will list the variations I tried.  Most were unorthodox braids.  I was working V-fell, where the pinky finger is the operator finger and the index finger of the other hand holds the traveling loop.  I mostly picked up the traveling loop from above, which reversed the loop (and not from below, which reverses it with the opposite twist).

I did the square/round braid when I wanted to separate braids that I thought would be too similar.  I also did a bit of the braid where you don't go through any loops at all, kind of a pigtail braid.  Then there were the unorthodox skip-a-loop-or-two braids.  Skip the loop next to the index finger.  Only go through the loop next to the index finger.  Go through the two loops next to the index finger.  Go through the pinky and middle finger but skip the ring finger.  Etc.

It was interesting seeing the slight differences.  In general, the more loops one goes through, the wider/looser/flatter the braid.  Sometimes there's a small groove down the center of the braid, while other times the middle stands high.  The depth of the groove on the backside was sometimes a bit deeper/shallower, too.

None are bad braids.  The two Crickmore variations (triangular and D-shaped) are distinctive from each other and from the other ones I tried.  Ditto for the Guajiro braids, though i don't think I did the version where you skip the pinky and middle finger but go through the ring finger loop.

I also warped up a new tablet-woven band.  This is Snartemo II, though of course I'm working in cotton (the usual #10 crochet thread for the warp and finer crochet thread for the weft) rather than wool, as the original probably was.  I also decided to weave it in blue and white rather than red and yellow.

I'm using the chart/description from Maikki Karisto and Mervi Pasanen, because of course I am.  Their version has 17 tablets.  The center 12 tablets are the pattern tablets, and they are 2-threaded.  There are 3 edge tablets on the left and 2 on the right, all 4-threaded.  The 3 tablets of the left edge are woven with a tubular selvedge.  The pattern is pretty simple -- 26F/26B, not counting the edges which are always turned forward.

Here is a description of how they determined that this was the probable technique used for the band.  They worked through some other possibilities and showed that the other ones probably weren't the techniques used and that this version, in their opinion, most closely matched the archaeological specimen.

Anyway, it's fun, easy, fast, etc.  I'm enjoying it so far.  The pic is of one of the first repeats.

D-shaped 7-loop fingerloop braid (2 ways)

It's been a while since I've posted!  I've been busy.  I've been doing some fingerloop braiding and other narrow wares, but nothing all that exotic, so I haven't posted.  I've also taught more people how to do various types of fingerloop braiding.

Today I decided to watch Ingrid Crickmore's video to see the braid she calls a D-shaped 7-loop braid (https://loopbraider.com/2015/04/21/uo-dshaped-7tut/)  I can't remember if I've done this braid already, but if not, then I definitely played with it today!

If I haven't done the braid before, it's because she doesn't give instructions on her website for how to do it.  One has to watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOFL5qigiU0&ab_channel=IngridCrickmore.  I mean, it's a fine video, but a few sentences or a diagram would have been MUCH faster.

But now the video has been watched, and the braid has been braided.  It's very cute.  Of course.  And it will be entirely easy to play around with all kinds of color/texture variations.

I've tried to fold the braid in the pic so one can see both sides of the braid, and also see where I switched back and forth between unreversed and reversed loops.  Those are the "2 ways" referred to in the blog post title and also in the video.  I used acrylic worsted weight yarn, though the white yarn is a little thinner than the blue and the green.

Ingrid Crickmore on her video said that reversing was best done by coming over the top of the braid rather than the bottom -- she seemed to think that the first twist direction made a more pleasing braid.  That is interesting since twist direction was one of the things I thought might be a variable for fingerloop braiding variations.  Yup.  It might be a very minor variable, but I guess it can make at least a subtle difference.

This is an unorthodox braid, meaning that the operator finger doesn't go through all the loops before picking up the traveling loop.  With the V-fell method that Crickmore uses, the pinky finger goes through the pinky and ring finger loops of the other hand, then over the middle finger loop, before picking up the index finger loop.  Loops can be picked up either unreversed or reversed without changing the overall appearance of the braid all that much (not counting colors, of course).

I used bi-color loops, obviously, in the same arrangement that the video uses.  There are a lot of fun color variations on the website.  I'm looking forward to playing with them.  I'll also play around with other 7-loop unorthodox braids, of course.  I've already done some -- there are a lot of different things to play around with.

One of the things I've been teaching lately is a 5-loop unorthodox braid, the braid that so many people worldwide seem to do.  I was looking at instructions for a brode lace of v bowes (https://fingerloop.org/patterns.html#n01) and realized that it was a different unorthodox braid that I had initially assumed.  For the brode lace of v bowes, which in the Medieval manuscripts is done with the A-fell technique, one skips the loop next to the traveling loop.  But it's also easy to skip the loop next to the operator finger and go through the loop next to the traveling loop instead.  Both look perfectly respectable, though I think I might slightly prefer the appearance of the first one (where you skip the loop next to the traveling loop).

Just as an aside, for the unorthodox braids where you skip the loop closest to the operator finger and go through the loop closest to the traveling loop, Ingrid Crickmore refers to them as triangle braids.  The braids she refers to as D-shaped braids skip the loop closest to the traveling loop.  Or so I currently understand.  I think.

I'll have to take pics of my little 5-loop samplers and add them to the blog, either revising this post or making a new one.  I did give most of them away, though.  Maybe I'll make a new one.  I usually do several braids to show people -- pigtail (i.e. don't go through any loops), brode lace of v bowes, divided, square/round, flat, the unorthodox braid where I go through the loop next to the traveling loop instead of next to the operator finger, and so on.  People like the divided braid to use as a hanging loop or buttonhole, etc.

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Aisling's tablet weaving book finally arrived.  Yay!  Tablet -Woven Bands from Egypt of the early Byzantine era (395-641) and later, by Silvia "Aisling" Ungerechts.  This is the color version, purchased from a European vendor.  The USA version was in black and white (which I don't think was known before the publisher delivered copies to USA vendors) and the charts had zero contrast and thus were unusable.  The color one is fine.  I've done a few of these bands already (ones that are on her website or were in her TWIST articles about a few of these bands).  I'm looking forward to exploring more!

Another simple tablet-woven band (Double X Double O) and Bonus Fingerlooping (3-loop experiment)

I saw a photo of a band and wanted to re-create it.  Attempt #1 is not quite right, but it's still reasonably attractive.  I knew it wasn't quite right but forgot that I wanted to adjust my chart.  I had already warped it up when I remembered, which seems very silly when I say that but that's more or less how it happened.

This is a very simple pattern.  I call it Double X Double O.  Maybe I'll do some variations on this in the future.   I do like having the two-tone background color.

I've charted up attempt #2 and will probably try again.  Not that I need to re-create what I saw, but it's an interesting exercise.

I'm still having issues with different motifs being different lengths.  As far as I can tell, the width is the same and I'm beating the weft the same.  But apparently not.  Or the cotton is more stretched out in some areas than others.  Or it's something about where the weight is, how close my weaving is to the cards, how twisted the edge cards are, how long the band sat under tension before weaving (though I tried to let it sit for a while each time).  Or maybe it'll go away after blocking.

I kept the weight fairly low compared to what I usually do for this many cards, and I kept the weft fairly loose in order to widen the band (to reduce the apparent elongation of the motifs).  The unblocked length is about 63" and the unblocked width is about 7/8" wide.  It's destined for a gift.

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Next up is a fingerloop braid.  I decided it was time to try a new-to-me way to make longer braids.  I've done the crochet-chain method before (I think I came up with it on the fly), but wanted to try other methods from Ingrid Crickmore's website.

I am doing 3 loops, all different colors, fairly short.  I'm doing a flat braid (twist the left-hand loop, don't twist the right-hand loop) using the V-fell method.  I did the method of making a slip knot, braiding one end, then undoing the slip knot and braiding the other end.

In terms of tension, it's pretty consistent.  I can see the join, though, because I know where to look and because there is a slight color pattern disruption.  The pattern is symmetric around the joining point.

But I don't have a flat braid.  Huh?  It looks like an unorthodox braid, even, with one side slightly domed with a V-type pattern and another side with a more interwoven look.  It is almost but not quite triangular in cross-section.  It has a gentle spiral along the length of the braid which is actually rather attractive.  If it's unorthodox, that would also explain why the braid isn't flat.  Is it even possible to make an unorthodox 3-loop braid?

So what did I do?  My guess is that I wasn't paying attention and came up with yet another variation on a 3-loop braid.  I thought I was using my middle finger on one hand, going through the middle-finger loop on the other hand, and picking up the index finger loop from that other hand.  But what was I really doing?  And what should I have been doing?

I should set this up again and actually watch what my hands are doing.

And I need to play around more with doing braids this way so that the center join is less obvious, and also to see what exactly happens to flat braids at the center (i.e., does it open up from the other side of the braid, in which case I'll reverse the crossed loop vs non-crossed hands?).  Until then, though, I think I feel comfortable doing single-color square braids.

As always, attempt #1 just goes to show what a noob I am.  I like the results but am rather mystified as to how I got there, and it wasn't quite what I was trying to do.  On to attempt #2!  (Check out the further exposition from Ingrid Crickmore, here.  Apparently she has worked through these issues already.  Except for the part where she was making a mystery braid, though she probably did that, too, at various points in her self-education.

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My list of things I want to do is SOOOO long.  Dunno what I'll get to next.