Given all of the “rainbow” braids I have done in the past year, and how the colors for our local SCA Barony are black and gold (just like Pittsburgh), we were beginning to run low on yellow cotton crochet thread. Normally, I would pop over to one of the local JoAnn Fabrics locations, but RIP JoFab. I hate mail ordering something I could just buy in a store, so I held my nose and went over to the closest Michaels. They actually had one package of the Aunt Lydia’s Classic 10 in yellow. It wasn’t the yellow I wanted (I prefer the deeper, more golden yellow to the more pastel yellow.), but it was the same as what we had a bit left of, so that was OK.
They also had some of the rainbow variegated thread, so on a whim I bought some and tried to measure out some warps that matched the progression of colors across the plies in each strand. Then I braided the edo yatsu gumi with each to see what effects I could create.
The first try I didn’t get the length of the warps quite right. Plus, because of the way the yarn is wrapped back and forth between the warping pegs, half the warps have the color progression reversed. Still an interesting braid.
On m second try, I got the warps about as close to perfect as I can imagine. Still, because of the reversed warps the spirals cancel out in the middle and it’s an almost solid green.
Finally, I gave in and cut the warps, matching them end for end. I still used the same edo yatsu braid as the first two, but I only used 6 plies of cotton per strand instead of 8. This results in a slightly thinner braid, and the color matching provides a much smoother fade from color to color down the braid. I really like this one.
I’ve done so many longer and more complex braids lately that I have almost forgotten how much fun it can be to quickly warp up a shorter, simpler braid and have a completed cord in an hour or so.
