Keeping my hands busy
This is just a little something to keep my hands busy, like knitting which I don’t do. I was playing games on my phone too much, to fill time and all that does is waste time and give me a crick in my neck. I would felt or spin but that is not always practical to do so I started making some shoelaces on a homemade kumihimo marudai disk.
Mine is made out of a piece of a cardboard box. It is 4 inches across and has 8 slots to do a 7 strand braid.
This is the simplest one to do so is a good place to start. Count 3 stings left from the empty slot and move that strand into the empty slot. Turn the disk and count again moving the 3rd strand down into the empty slot. That’s it, you just keep moving and turning.
I started this before I thought about blogging about it so I am using black mercerized cotton for shoelaces for my husband. Not the best to photograph. I will leave it large so you can see it better.
I tied up the long ends with small hair elastics so they are easier to handle. Each strand has to be about twice as long as you want the finished braid so they get in the way and get tangled even more than when they are tied up.
This is one Jan was making with nicer yarns so you can see the round braid easier. She is using a bulldog clip to weight her braid so she doesn’t have to pull on it like I do. It’s hanging down the bunnies neck.
You can buy foam disks with more slots so you can do more complicated patterns or if you are cheap like me, just cut more slots in your cardboard disk.
If you really enjoy doing it you can get a proper Marudai.
there are other kinds and shapes depending on what you are doing but you can do round or flat braids on this and make some really nice patterns.
At our guild show this year we will have these on our make and take table. Jan made up some nicer ones (like in the bunny picture) with the instructions printed on them ( there are french instructions on the other side too) for us to use on the make and take table. I see a night of cutting and prepping braids in many colours in my future.