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Saturday April 5, 2008
Braiding Day
Sandy ran her annual braiding day at Headley - about half a dozen of us attended, and it was great fun - like being in Primary School again. [No - come to think of it - more fun than that]. Sandy brought a good few different types of braiding for us to try out, and lots of books to look at.
With such an opportunity I wanted to try something new and, attracted by the pile of highly coloured wools, I learnt about loop manipulation braiding. Here is Pam starting out having a go - Japanese style - the orange wool on the table is my initial effort.
The nice thing about this is - there are no fancy tools - just fingers. I tried three methods - English, Norwegian, and Japanese. I found the Japanese easier than the English (for a change) and the Norwegian was the nicest but produced a different type of braid - flat on one side and curved on the other. You can work with more than one person to produce wider braids - on the front of one book was a photo of 10 Japanese hands working together - manic....
Sharon brought her Lucet braiding, which is not a name familiar to me though I have seen the tool (no idea where) and probably thought it was for hairpin lace. As well as the 2 pronged variety she had a 4 prong tool, which kind of reminds you of "Knitting Nancy" - however the principal of the thread manipulation is different.
Several of us brought our ply-split flowers to finish off** ...and out of the left over strands, Pam, Janice, and I made a keyring each***. The pattern is "waves" as explained in Julie Hedges book on ply-split.
There were 3 Marudais - a standard wooden one in the far distance, a lovely little dark wood one in the middle, and the one Janice made that inspired me to make mine.
Gill working Kuminhimo with a polystyrene square - I should have pictured the output as it was a fantastic woolen spiral braid.
** Here it is - my lovely craft bag (present from Alison) - "improved".
***George was delighted when I said I'd made him something and he looked at the keyring with some interest - and finally said "its lovely..... I don't want it."
Posted by Christina at 6:21 PM. Category: Spinning, Dying, Weaving
