shigeuchi – Nothing In It

Silk Sageo Cord

Posted on 2026.06.012026.05.29 by Elliott Evans

A dear friend of mine from way back who is a martial arts enthusiast had bought himself a Japanese sword, and he asked me if I would make a sageo cord for it. It was my pleasure to do this for him. I was able eventually to find some dark blue silk yarn in sufficient quantity to make this 9.5 foot long 7/16 inch wide 9-strand shigeuchi braid.

I started with about 13.5 feet of material, 10 ends of silk yarn per strand, and worked this braid on my sankakudai. Quite a bit of uptake, really. The amount of material gave me a nice heavy braid, and the silk makes it soft and flexible for its tightness. The use of yarn makes the braid a little fuzzier than I would prefer, but it’s mostly clean and only a little fuzzy. It took me about a year to get all my ducks in a row on this one, but like I said, eventually.

Two-color Sankakudai Braid

Posted on 2026.05.02 by Elliott Evans

I still had a lot of burgundy and gray crochet cotton tripled up on my kowaku spools since last year. I was measuring out a lot of material for my class at the Braids 2025 conference in Cleveland, and it’s just been occupying the spools since then. I decided to use up as much of it as I could and make a nice, long shigeuchi braid on my sankakudai.

The final braid is about 9.5 feet long between the bindings and not quite a half inch wide. Each strand of this 9-strand braid has 6 ends of cotton crochet thread, and I started with 13 feet of material. So, about 27% uptake. The next sankakudai braid will be a sageo cord in dark blue silk, so these calculations are fairly important. I’m aiming for about 9 feet long.

Kingdom Shigeuchidai Braids

Posted on 2024.09.132024.08.28 by Elliott Evans

I had been doing a lot of sankakudai braiding recently, and had an event coming up where I had very little to do except watch tournaments, talk to artisans, and wait for things to happen. So, I decided to experiment with interesting patterns on the shigeuchidai, using some heavy cotton to make 9-strand shigeuchi braids.

6 ends of cotton crochet thread per strand
3 red and 6 white, RWRWR and WWWW

8 ends of cotton crochet thread per strand
3 white and 6 red, RRWRR and WRRW

I had fun just sitting and braiding, plus people walking by would ask questions about the shigeuchidai and kumihimo, so I could tells stories and explain explain the different braids and equipment.

Largesse Braids for the East

Posted on 2024.08.042024.07.30 by Elliott Evans

Every year at Pennsic, the Kingdoms in the SCA trade gift baskets. This year, my Kingdom is gifting the Crown of the East Kingdom with a basket of goodies that they can use during their reign or give out as largesse themselves. I decided to chip in with some of my stock of illustrated scroll blanks and some fresh medallion cord braids in East Kingdom colors.

These were all in violet and gold silk lace-weight yarn, with multiple ends of yarn per strand. These braids enabled me to practice some new techniques and on some new equipment, so it was totally worth it.