Thursday, November 5, 2009

Kumihimo Braided Bracelet


This kind of braiding reminds me of those plastic keychain weaves that we made way back when.  In slightly more technical terms, according to wikipedia, kumihimo is a form of japanese braiding that interlaces cords and ribbons. It doesn't necessarily require a loom, but the loom is mightly useful.  I've created a template for you to download.

Materials:
ribbon (I'm sure you can use different media such as yarn maybe dmc thread )
kumihimo loom

Download template here.

How To:

- Create a cardboard cutout with the template.  You can glue the template on the cardboard or just trace it.  You can use an exacto knife to cut the circle in the middle, and scissors to cut the little notches.


Okay, so I'm gonna cheat a bit here...





Anyway, the video shows you what you need to know, but the basics are:
1. First,  find the middle of the ribbon (4 ribbons with the of length 4 ft) and tied the ribbons together, then feed the knot thru the hole in the middle of the loom



.
2. Next, attached the ribbon 2 on top, 2 on the bottom, 2 on the left 2 on the right. I also wrote down ABCD on the template so I know what section I'm working on (just a marker).


3. For the actual braiding, remember, top right goes down, bottom left, goes up, turn disc counter clockwise and start again. :-)




4.  You pretty much keep on doing that til you have the length you want.  It actually takes a lot of time to get a decent length, but it looks great in the end.

 5.  Once you've braided to the length of the bracelet, you can make another knot at the end of the braid, I actually, just took half of the ribbons and made a knot around the other half so the knot wasn't so thick.




There you have it, Kumihimo braiding. I love the design it creates.  I think this should work fine with DMC thread, but I haven't tried it. If you try it with DMC or yarn, please let me know how it goes. :-)

4 comments:

Emily said...

Danny and I have done these with yarn- they come out kind of thick for a bracelet, though...

Emily said...

Oh, and speaking of weaving things...loved my book mark you put in my package! I can't find instructions on your blog, though, and I thought they would be good things for Danny to make for his teacher, Great-Grandpa, etc, for Christmas...

Fe said...

Here, I'm using 1/8" ribbon. It turned out to be about 1/4" diameter. Thanks for the info about the yarn.

The ribbon bookmark was my first project post... and it wasn't a tutorial. You can find my post here.

Thanks again for visiting, and happy bookmark making. :-)

Emily said...

I should have mentioned- when Danny & I used the yarn, we were using at least 12 strands (slightly different pattern than what you had) and it was poofy yarn...might work nicely with only 8 strands and a sleeker yarn...

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