Braiding Up Instead Of Braiding Down

[HorsehairBraider]

I was experimenting with a different way to braid - instead of clamping your ends, and then braiding down, you hold the ends tied in a knot in your hand and work the ends back and forth across the top of your fist, and the braid grows up instead of down.

If you've ever seen kumihimo braiding it's the same sort of thing, except instead of all that gear (the braiding stool, the little weights etc.) you just use your hand. The braid typically has four faces - let's say E, W, N and S. As you work the braid, you hold down the East and West sides, but leave North and South exposed so you can make the passes. Once the passes are made in the North and South, you hold them down and leave East and West exposed so you can make the passes with those.

Another thing I have seen this called is Andes sling braiding. Not that slings are only braided in the Andes... but there was a book called "Sling Braiding of the Andes" that explained this type of braiding. I tried it in the traditional materials (llama or alpaca yarn) but thought - hey, maybe this would work with horsehair? That got me to wondering if anyone else had tried it. Maybe it would work in leather or rawhide, with really thin strings!

This is what it looks like in horsehair:

Here, I've used a bread tie to wrap around the hairs in the bigger example. This shows the top part where you create the braid. One of the things you have to do is cross the "lower" to the "upper" on the opposite side. I think you can see the lowers and uppers here:

That particular braid is made with 28 strings... but really it's only 24, because you double up on the center of the diamonds. In this case the diamonds are black, so where there was black, I used two strings instead of only one.

Has anyone else ever tried this? How did it work out for you? I think this would make a handsome bracelet in horsehair!

[Drac]

I THINK I get what you're saying, and if so, that's what I learned as a square braid.

[Aggiebraider]

Thats what I was thinking too as far as the square braid goes. Or its also the foundation for a Turks Head Terminal knot.

[Suze]

I've tried braiding in my fist

but I prefer my Kumihimo stand and weights

for myself I get a much "steadier" braid and I can walk away from it without it getting all messed up (unless the cat "helps")

of course I work with thread (silk and rayon) no doubt horsehair works "different"

Edited May 17, 2010 by Suze

[HorsehairBraider]

I too learned a square braid as a youngster and it was similar to this... this is simply a little more complicated so that you can make really neat patterns in the braid - like little lizards crawling up and down the braid, or human skeletons etc. The stuff I used as a kid was this horrid plastic "boondogle" stuff, and the braid used only 8 strands. Similar, but nothing like what you can do when you use more strands.

As far as using thread, that would work with this too. I use some sort of tie to tie down the side that needs to be tied down (instead of my fist) when it is time to stop. I've done this in yarn and thread as well. Cats would completely screw up everything.... I've used the weights etc. but this is so much easier, for me. No equipment, you just pick it up and go.

So do you guys have any pictures of what you've done? That would be great to see that. I'd love to see the patterns you got, or the technique you are using.