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.

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.)

Vague ruminations on easy-to-make cords

I've been thinking of doing a class on easy ways to make cords.  It's not so much a follow-up on the class I did for the Fill-the-Gap braid, but more of "one in a series of".  I like cords.  Narrow wares.  Etc. I'm not wedded to any particular technique, either.

So...  if I were to do a class on something like "Three Easy Cords"  (or four, or five, and yes, that's a slight riff on Five Easy Pieces), what would I include?  Some of it would depend on the length of the class.  Too many things would cause people's brains to shut down.  But all of these are easy, so might not be enough for one class per cord.  Though I did the Fill-the-Gap braid as a single (30-minute) class, and it requires less than 5 minutes to teach/learn.

The criteria to be included in this imaginary class or series of classes would be something easy with few or no tools needed.  Here are some ideas.

1.  Twisted cord.  This is so dead easy I'd hesitate to include it.  Except that some people truly haven't learned it, or at least it doesn't occur to them to use it when they need some cordage.  It's an easy way to make something useful and fun, and of course is the basis for things like making rope.  And heck, cordage, since this is basically making a 2-ply from some kind of single ply.

There's a second way to make it, which I see in basketry videos -- twist the cords, then kind of do a weird flip to wrap them around and equalize the twist somehow.  I'll have to go back through the videos and see exactly what it is and how to do it.  It seems useful for doing the twisted cord for a short segment at a time rather than the entire length of the cord.

Showing how to do this for the fringe ends after weaving/braiding/etc. could be useful, too.

2.  Two-loop fingerloop.  This is crazy fast and fun to make.  I still haven't quite mastered keeping the tension even, however.  It helps to have a second person, but there ought to be some other things I can do to keep things semi-even when a second person isn't handy.  Also, This cord tends to spiral, which some people might find slightly distressing.

There are a lot of other ways to make this particular structure.  Some of those would be preferable, especially when you want to keep your options open about how long the cord needs to be.  The fingerloop method is a lot of fun, though.

The 2-loop fingerloop braid is well-illustrated here: https://loopbraider.com/2019/12/28/spirals-and-2-loops/

It's also in one of the little booklets I have on Friendship Bracelets, though done freehand rather than with finger-looping.  And I'm pretty sure it's the same structure as one of the first braids in Rodrick Owen's book on Braids -- 250 patterns from Japan, Peru & Beyond.  The simple "worldwide" braids in his book can be made in the hand as well as on a disk or marudai.

3.  Finger crochet.  This is something in Montse Stanley's knitting book.  She calls it finger crochet, but I'm not sure exactly what other names it's known by.  It makes a nice cord that is somewhat square in appearance. 

After checking the Ashley Book of Knots, I believe that this might be a version of what he calls Idiot's Delight, knot 2896, p.477 -- also check out his other sinnets on nearby pages.  Also, after doing a bit of searching online, this seems to be known as a Zipper Sinnet in the paracording community.

4. Finger knitting.  Who needs a lucet or chain fork or knitting spool when you have fingers?  There are a lot of instructions out there for anywhere from 1 finger (which looks mostly like crochet chains) to at least 4.  Two fingers is pretty easy.  The structure is kind of loose if you don't pay attention to tightening the loop at each step.

5.  Three and four loop fingerloop braids, also found on the loopbraider.com website.  See this one as well as the one above: https://loopbraider.com/2012/08/02/easy-3-loop-braids/

6. Macrame.  Take two cords.  One makes half-hitches over the second, maybe alternating which one does the half-hitch and which is the holding cord.  Booklets and websites on friendship bracelets have many variations on this kind of theme.

7. Those scoobie-braids, the type kids make lanyards from in summer camp.

8. Paracord braids, some of which are fairly straightforward.

9. Plaiting and other braids.  The three-strand braid is known by just about everyone and is very historic.  I happen to love 5 strand plaits (aka rope braids), partly because they too are very historic.  Of course there are zillions of braids out there.

For some of the above,  you need some way to keep tension on the cord as you make it, and that may well require tying it or pinning it to something.  Others just need your hands/fingers.  Some need just one strand (or bundle of strands), while others use two or more strands or loops.  All would make smallish cords that would then be used for something else -- ropes, shoelace, tying packages, running through eyelets, simple bracelets, fringes, and so on.

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I'm still dithering about what tablet-weaving pattern to do next.  Something tubular?  I have enough wool yarn left for 16 strands.  So I could do a monochrome tubular braid from Tablet-Woven Treasures, with 8 tablets having 2 threads each.  Or I could do a 4-tablet tubular braid with all the holes threaded with alternating \ and / tablet orientation.  Or I could add another color.  Or I could try to do some kind of braid with the yarn instead of tablet weaving.  I'm kind of inclined towards the monochrome tubular 2-hole braid as what I'd like to tablet-weave with the yarn, but I haven't decided for sure yet.

Or, I could go back to cotton and/or colors and/or some other wool I have and do something else.  Another El Cigarralejo braid?  More brick-patterned bands?  Vestrum or Snartemo II?  The little 2-hole Antinoe grave band or another 2-hole that is mostly Xs and diamonds?  A checkerboard, either threaded-in or double-face?  The monochrome-ish 2-hole/diagonals Hochdorf wallhanging?  Some of the 8-tablet 2-hole patterns from Eva Sandermann Olsen's Tablet Weaving pdf?  Something else from Randi Stoltz?  Or something else entirely?  There are so many possibilities.

I may need to put away the tablet-weaving work area for a few days, so if I don't decide soon, the decision will be made for me -- i.e. no tablet weaving for at least a few days.

But while I'm dithering, I think I'll crank out some more cords and think about how to organize classes to show them to others.