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Sunday March 2, 2008
Mother's Day, and Mirrors
When I first joined the Creative Fibres group - Spinners Weavers and Dyers - the one thing I was sure about was that I was not at all interested in weaving - how long ago that seems...
Since then I have been seduced into trying my hand at braiding - both Kumihimo and ply-split. [See the extended entry to understand how this came about!].
Anyway, it's Mothers Day today in the UK and this gave me the incentive during the week to finish off some little braided items I've in mind for quite a long time. Here is the cord I made from cotton thread I had bought on eBay - I had made spiral rounded braids in two colours - this one introduces a third colour, and the bobbins are set unevenly in the marudai. Sadly the photo does not do justice to the deep purple, and green colours.
A close up shows the colours but they are not as vivid as in reality.
I had to be quite inventive as to how to finish off the ends, and attach them to retainers to attach to your glasses, [note that Jacqui Carey supplies the ends, and they are fine if you want a lot of them, but I found it cheaper to go to the optician in the village and buy a low quality cord at 75p in order to cannibalise it for the ends].
It seems to me that braid is pretty limited in its uses - certainly if you are beginner - but a fairly obvious use is to make a piece of string to hang your glasses on. As you get older, I have noticed, you go through a phase of using one of these; I think it's as you start to need reading glasses** but have not yet reached the point when you require glasses all the time. I think they are quite naff - but it's only a matter of time for me I'm sure - I have made strings now for George and his Mother, and who else is there but myself?
[**I have begun to think now that your eyesight fails as you get older, to protect you from the full force of that first early morning sight of yourself in the bathroom mirror...]
I leave you with that thought on mirrors, philosophy, and aging..... and with some more pictures of the braid destined to be George's spectacle cord.
These are both spiral braids created with 8 bobbins, 4 in each colour, and using the same movements, but the bobbins are arranged in a different sequence on the mirror.
How did this happen?
At my very first meeting (the Open Day 2006) I tried all with
all the things on offer, and braiding was well-represented as
Sandy is the Chairman of the Braiding Society. I had a go at Kumihimo
as her Marudai was all set up, and I thought it was simple enough
(I could see that it was easy to get in a muddle, even with only
8 bobbins but...) and no real interest there. However, on display
was Janice's "home
made" Marudai**, and I thought "I could do that!", the prospect
of a DIY project being much more appealing than the braiding!
**[I should explain that the equipment for Kumihimo can work out
very expensive - the bobbins are about 8 quid each and the Marudai
over 100 - and thats before you buy the Japanese silk threads!].
I searched for a round plant stand all over the place - but without success, and then I found a bathroom rubbish bin, which had a wooden top with a hole already cut in it, and I rushed home to try it out right away. For my first efforts I used the bin itself as a base - this work "ok" but the bin did not have enough depth to allow any substantial length of braid to be made before repositioning of the centre weight was required - and repositioning was almost impossible as the sides are completely enclosed. Anyway I made my first piece of flat braid in this way (not so very many mistakes!) - this is a close up - the braid is about 7mm wide:
I then decided it was worth progressing with adapting the top of the my bin into the Marudai "mirror" (the top plate). I cut some dowel to make legs - I cut holes (very carefully!) in my mirrror using a router, and glued the legs in place. I then made a base for the legs to sit in - this involved a lot of careful measuring and levelling which I don't want to think about. Here are the legs being glued:
The base is an old piece of faced chipboard, which started out square, and I finally cut into a round; I still plan to paint it. Here is my "finished" Marudai.
The bobbins (tama) are probably the most cost saving part of the exercise; they are made from 35mm film canisters. I used to have a lot of these, but I purged them all and in these days of digital cameras I have not accrued any more. No problem there though. I went to my local camera shop and I mentioned what I was after and the guy gave me a HUGE bag full of them! The tama have to be weighted, for which I used 2p coins, which serve the purpose well, as you can put exactly the same number of coins in each canister. I finished them off with an elastic band to act as a "retainer" and stop the threads slipping off.
Each bobbin should weigh about 70g - this can vary according to what you are doing - and then you need a counterweight in the middle at about 50-70% of the total weights of the tama - a bag full of more 2p coins.
As a beginner, again to keep cost down, I was advised to try machine embroidery threads, as they provide a shiny look, a bit like the silks normally used. It was a bit tedious making 20-strand cords to wind on the bobbin - I was able to use my wig loom as warping posts, but the warping takes much longer than the actual braiding. I purchased some threads on eBay, with which someone had been trying out Kumihimo; they were cotton, so harder to use (slippery is better), but already pre-cut into lengths, so much quicker to wind on the bobbins.
Final Kumihimo braids:
Kumihimo supplies are available on the web from Jacqui Carey, as are books on the subject.
For information and book on Ply-split braiding see Julie Hedges site.
Posted by Christina at 11:21 AM. Category: Spinning, Dying, Weaving
