#medieval fingerloop braiding

[calendae-creations]

This is my second attempt at medieval fingerloop braiding, using Morgan Donner's youtube tutorial. It's actually two pieces that I (somewhat clumsily) spliced together in the middle.

I had bought twill tape to be the drawstring for a skirt, but that was right before I broke my foot, then sprained it, then broke my leg, so by the time I could draft the pattern for the skirt, I'd lost everything but the fabric and the measurements, lol. So, any excuse to learn a new craft, right?

Of course, as soon as I finished it, the twill tape turned up.

The mostly-finished skirt and the drawstring are currently in a vat of purple RIT dye. I'll continue to post pics as the project progresses.

[lucaswarmhotchocolate]

This was made this afternoon, before the friendship bracelet got started! Overall i found fingerloop braiding to be just as easy to learn, but i got into the flow way quicker and managed to finish it quicker too :-)

Made with holst supersoft, of course.

[gothicslouch]

fingerloop braiding projects from this weekend! Not featured are the several flat and round cords i made as practice before trying the more complicated patterns! First braid is ‘a grene dorge of vi bowes’ from fingerloop.org, the second braid is the ‘lace maskell’ pattern from silkewerk.com.

[thehaberdasheress]

A cool medieval thing: Fingerloop braiding! I'm impressed by the quality of this video, but it only has two hundred and sixty views so far!

[scribefindegil]

Curse crafting: tried some Medieval fingerloop braiding! It actually works really well lying down bc you can just anchor it to one foot and use the other as a beater, so I got a full yard of cord without losing tension. Also once you get the pattern down it's very easy to do by feel! This is a very simple introductory pattern, so I definitely want to try some more complicated ones. Still have to be careful not to overdo it in terms of hand movements, and it can be challenging if you need to get up in the middle, but it's a good option to have!

[handweavers]

have taught myself medieval fingerloop braiding and now i can't stop making fingerloop braids

[devynconstance]

Just finished braiding some yarn to test out on my medieval dress. The believe the cord I was using originally was too thick for the eyelets and it was making it difficult to get the dress on and off so this is the first solution I'm attempting.

Not sure if the yarn will hold up even with the braiding but it's worth a shot before moving onto more extreme measures.

Fun fact braiding or weaving wool, flax, or leather was an extremely common form of cord making in viking and medieval period, though definitely not the method I used here.

This is a lucet (not my photo)

And it's a tool that can be used to weave together said previous materials and/or yarn into a strong cord (much stronger than a 3 strand braid). The benefit of such a method is you aren't limited to a predetermined length of cord prior to braiding and can essentially make a really long cord relatively quickly (with the added bonus of it actually looking historically accurate when used with historical pieces)

Seeing as I didn't have this tool on hand to try out and I'm really just in the testing problem solving phase in my project I just went with a regular 3 strand braid despite its obviously inferior qualities.

I could have also used a fingerloop braid instead which would be much stronger in the long run and would produce a similar result (and would still be historically accurate).

However, I forewent this method for the moment because I was unsure if I had enough yarn on hand to accommodate this method (I'm using the last of what I had on hand) and I didn't really have the time to learn how to do this braid for this project.

That being said though I hope to learn both methods for upcoming historical projects because there is nothing better than using historical methods when making historical garments.

[sloth-with-a-knife]

What I did this weekend:

made a moth masquerade mask

watched The Menu

studied medieval knots and braids

watched The Menu

made some medieval fingerloop braids

watched The Menu

[justgarb]

Playing around and figured out I can make my fingerloop braids into neat spirals. Not sure what else I can do with this but I bet I can get rid of the big tassle on the yule hat and bring it back down to more medieval/fantasy and less mongolian

[corvus--rex]

sewing, crochet, needlepoint, knitting, cross stitch, embroidery, tatting, spinning (drop spindle), needle felting (very briefly), medieval fingerloop braiding

yeah...don't...just don't get into fibre crafting...

do NOT get into fibre arts!!!! you try one and then all of a sudden you have 10 hobbies and wanna try 10 more

[iphisesque]

so I learned how to braid rope and I love it??? it's so nice I'm literally ecstatic

[tiuhtaviuhta]

I really need get back into medieval braiding - this fingerloop braid is going to make hanging loops for towels, and it's so pretty

[jackalgirl]

[ Image description: a ribbon made out of cotton thread.  It is mostly black with blue dots spaced along its center, and the ends have been knotted with the threads left loose to make tassels.  End id. ]

I don’t know what’s going on, but I have zero -- zero -- motivation lately.  I did read a book yesterday (”The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”, by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, which like Neal’s “Anathem”, is an excellent exploration of the narrative possibilities of Everett’s “Many Worlds” formulation of Quantum Mechanics) after doing some auditions for Voice123 (I get one or two to do every day now, which is nice).  So it’s not as if I’m not doing creative things.

On the other hand, I’d been thinking about offering to do some commissions in either sketch and/or line-and-wash.  But if I can’t get the motivation going to put together a price graphic, I’m not sure I’m going to have the motivation to actually do the work.  Likewise, I see my Tumblr feed and I want to follow and respond and be engaged, but the brain is stuck in neutral.  So I feel paralyzed.  I know it’ll pass -- at the time being, though, it’s like having a head full of bees who have been oversmoked.

I did manage to get a small bookmark made using a technique from Medieval England -- one of the fingerloop braids (”A Grene Dorge of VI Bowes”, only mine isn’t “grene”), described in Elizabeth Benns’ & Gina Barret’s “Tak V Bowes Departed”, a treatise on 15th Century fingerloop weaving from Harley Manuscript 2320.   I followed the instructions that Morgan Donner gives in her YouTube video, only I can’t find my white crochet thread, so I just did everything in black and cobalt blue.  I should probably make some more chain for Max’s pocket watch also, but I don’t know if that will happen while my brain weasels are currently flat-ferreting.

At any rate, if I’m kind of quiet today, that’s why.  No worries -- this too shall pass.

[wakeful-watcher]

New sewing project's going well! Making a little pouch inspired by medieval alms purses, specifically one that will fit my phone haha. I will be adding some couched gold embroidery and pearls (once I pick those up from the store) plus a little loop so it can hang from a belt.

Haven't done any of the actual sewing part yet but I made some tassels for the bottom edge and one of the two fingerloop braids, with the other one almost finished. There's an obvious error in this one (rip) but I don't think it's too distracting, haha.

If you've never tried it, I HIGHLY reccomend fingerloop braiding. It's such a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, especially while listening to a nice podcast.

[k00257929]

redraped my last piece and then had a go at draping with paper! i tried to make it look kinda mothy but i managed to forget just about everything not once but twice today so i made do! at the waist i added a medieval fingerloop braid- a tiny detail, but i like it.

[robron-til-the-end-of-time]

If you want to know how my nights going, I’m teaching myself medieval fingerloop braiding, so really well.