Trying a New Craft - Braiding
At the Faire there was an SCA lady demonstrating fingerloop braiding. It looked magical.
There were also several booths selling kits for kumihimo, which also looked interesting. I thought I'd look it up at the library first instead of plunking $17 for a kit, and found this really great book, which explained what I wanted to hear:
And had diagrams!
From ye olde internet, I found http://members.verizon.net/~dana_gryphon/class_beginning_kumihimo.html
Which has plenty of information to get started.
I only cut out a cardboard loom from an empty kleenex box and look what I made!
It is just fascinating how it works, and there comes the braid out the other side.
The downside: it would take For. Ev. Er. to make any length of braid this way.
This is all the further I got even after doing it (it is a very relaxing activity for the hands) a whole afternoon while we had some friends over. Oops, the picture doesn't show, but it's a sample about 6" long.
A real polished wooden stand, with the braid weighted down beneath, and a practiced worker, could probably do it a lot faster.
Back to "fingerloop braiding" which the 14th c lady had been demonstrating. She provided this link,
http://stringpage.com/braid/fl/fingerloop.html
I cut some lengths of thread and got started. It takes just a few minutes to get the hang of it and then it requires no further attention and goes like lightning.
I braided all the way down to the ends of the loops while still standing there being amazed at how cool this was. I didn't even have time to get bored. WOW! Look how pretty it comes out!! And these were just the colors of cotton thread that I happened to have in the top drawer.
There were also several booths selling kits for kumihimo, which also looked interesting. I thought I'd look it up at the library first instead of plunking $17 for a kit, and found this really great book, which explained what I wanted to hear:
And had diagrams!
Which has plenty of information to get started.
I only cut out a cardboard loom from an empty kleenex box and look what I made!
It is just fascinating how it works, and there comes the braid out the other side.
The downside: it would take For. Ev. Er. to make any length of braid this way.
This is all the further I got even after doing it (it is a very relaxing activity for the hands) a whole afternoon while we had some friends over. Oops, the picture doesn't show, but it's a sample about 6" long.
A real polished wooden stand, with the braid weighted down beneath, and a practiced worker, could probably do it a lot faster.
Back to "fingerloop braiding" which the 14th c lady had been demonstrating. She provided this link,
http://stringpage.com/braid/fl/fingerloop.html
I cut some lengths of thread and got started. It takes just a few minutes to get the hang of it and then it requires no further attention and goes like lightning.
I braided all the way down to the ends of the loops while still standing there being amazed at how cool this was. I didn't even have time to get bored. WOW! Look how pretty it comes out!! And these were just the colors of cotton thread that I happened to have in the top drawer.
Karen's Reject Pile Again
I found Karen at it again, cleaning out one of her filing cabinet drawers full of old pictures. Crumple, toss, crumple, toss. I found these already wadded up, and ironed them.
I come from a family of unashamed dumpster-divers :-)
I come from a family of unashamed dumpster-divers :-)
The Most Beautiful Garb I've Ever Seen In My Whole Life
I didn't take a picture of it.
I got all shy that day for some reason, and couldn't bear to be walking around sticking a camera in people's faces. As a friend pointed out, they spent all that time getting dressed up, they must want to be noticed! Wouldn't it be a downer to go to all that effort and then not have everybody wanting to take your picture?
But I went all shy and didn't take many pictures of people directly.
I saw a lady wearing the most gorgeous dress I've ever seen in my entire life, and I would have asked her if I could take a picture, but she was sitting at a picnic table with her family and they were deep in conversation, and I stood there a couple minutes and they didn't notice me, so I walked off.
It was Accolade-shaped, but no upper-arm band, the sleeves weren't as long and it was BLUE. It was just too pretty for words.
So I'm going to have to be poking around the internet looking for photo galleries hoping she appears in one, since she's now my elusive goal of costuming perfection.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Edmund_blair_leighton_accolade.jpg
Click that to get to the HUGE close-up version :-)
I got all shy that day for some reason, and couldn't bear to be walking around sticking a camera in people's faces. As a friend pointed out, they spent all that time getting dressed up, they must want to be noticed! Wouldn't it be a downer to go to all that effort and then not have everybody wanting to take your picture?
But I went all shy and didn't take many pictures of people directly.
I saw a lady wearing the most gorgeous dress I've ever seen in my entire life, and I would have asked her if I could take a picture, but she was sitting at a picnic table with her family and they were deep in conversation, and I stood there a couple minutes and they didn't notice me, so I walked off.
It was Accolade-shaped, but no upper-arm band, the sleeves weren't as long and it was BLUE. It was just too pretty for words.
So I'm going to have to be poking around the internet looking for photo galleries hoping she appears in one, since she's now my elusive goal of costuming perfection.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Edmund_blair_leighton_accolade.jpg
Click that to get to the HUGE close-up version :-)
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