I was making a simple drawstring bag out of some surplus fabric, and found myself in need of a reliable drawstring. I had previously purchased some hemp beading cord with which to experiment, so this seemed like “the opportune moment”.
I measured out a “quadruple length” to start with. Typically, I clamp my warping posts to this chest of drawers I have in my studio. If I use the full width of the chest, a “single length” is about 52 inches. If I use all three pegs, a quadruple length (approx 17 feet) is pretty simple to measure out, but sometimes is not easy to transfer to the braiding stand. It went OK this time.
Since the hemp cord is stiff, I used my heaviest tama to make a nice tight braid. With only one color in the braid, it looks just like a “3-set” braid, but it really does have 5 strands. With these simple sankakudai braids the structure all looks the same unless you have more colors worked in the braid.
It took me a while to work through all of this material, but I wound up with plenty of hemp cord for all my drawstring needs, about 12 feet.
