Tag: silk

bookmark_border3 Odd Braids in Silk

Posted on by Elliott Evans

At the Braids 2025 conference in Cleveland, I am scheduled to teach a class on three braids for the marudai that use an odd number of elements. I realized that while I had a bunch of sample braids for those three, but none that I would consider to be “show quality”. They are mostly done in cotton or fuzzy yarn, and some of them have been attached to garments or other projects. to be “show braids”, they really should be done in silk thread and should be at least a couple of feet long. We still had plenty of reeled silk from the Georgia Yarn Company, so I decided to get busy braiding.

9-Strand “Shigeuchi Gumi” (30 inches)
17-Strand “Taka on Maru” Braid (32 inches)
15-Strand “Sankaku Gumi” (26 inches)

I braided each of these with about 16 ends of silk thread per tama. I say “about” because the lavender thread is ever so slightly thicker than the other colors. To get the 17-Strand braid relatively even, I had to go down to 12 ends of lavender pr tama. I had to work out the right patterns for each braid that would keep the colors together through the braid. That was somewhat tricky, but I now have a Jacqui Carey-style coloring grid for the 17-strand braid, which will be super handy in the future.

If any of these three braids interest you, please consider coming to the conference and signing up for my class! I am scheduled against some big names in braiding, so I would really appreciate support from the marudai braiding community.

bookmark_borderDifferent Double-Hira

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Following up on the previous double-hira, which expanded the 8-strand flat braid to 16 strands by having 8 groups of 2 instead of 4 groups of 2, I decided to try the braid with 4 groups of 4. Here’s what the pattern looks like:

16-Strand “Double Hira” Gumi A

Note the asymmetrical first move. Here is what the braid looks like:

Double-Hira Gumi A in black and gold silk

I really like the look of this braid. Interestingly, the braid is much thicker along one edge than along the other. I just love the look of those zig-zag chevrons, and the stitches come out really tight.

I didn’t post a pattern for the previous double-hira, so here it is, for comparison:

16-Strand “Double Hira” Gumi B

It sure looks more confusing, but it’s the same moves, just with more groups.

bookmark_borderDouble-Hira Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

So, if you remember my posting from about a year ago, sometimes I experiment with 8-strand braids that I have never tried a 16-strand “doubling” of. I was really happy with my doubling of the yatsu-se gumi, but for some reason I never thought to try a doubling of the 8-strand version of the shige-uchi braid (which is not really a shigeuchi at all) until now. Here is the pattern for the 8-strand braid:

If you expand the setup to 16 strands (with 8 groups of 2 instead of just 4 groups of 2) but keep the asymmetrical first move, the braid open up what would have been a naiki gumi round hollow braid into a wide, flat braid with a single layer plain weave,

16-strand flat braid in black and gold silk

I suppose this should be called the hira ju-roku gumi or “flat 16″ braid. The width of this braid varies due to variations in tension, but it averages about 5/8” (about 15mm) wide, which is very wide for a marudai braid. Mine came out very loose, but that may have been a function of the marudai I was using. For a braid this wide, I really should have used a marudai with a deeper “well” and a wider hole in the middle of the mirror. Anyway, the looseness makes this braid very soft and flexible.

bookmark_borderElevation Banners

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Painted silk banners are one of the things I do in the SCA. This past weekend there was an SCA event where there were four elevations, and I made banners for three of the four.

Purpure, within and conjoined at the base to an increscent an iris slipped and leaved argent.
Banner for Oribe Tsukime

Back in the summer, I made this banner for Oribe Tsukime. One cool thing about this banner is that I painted the design on in water-based resist, then painted purple around it. Normally, I would start with purple fabric and paint the design on in white, or do a gutta resist around the design and flood the outside area with color, but the detail on the iris was too fine for that method.

Argent, a chevron engrailed vert, in chief two ravens sable, and Purpure, a gurges and on a chief argent three golpes.
Banners for Markus skalpr Grimsson & Sumayya al Ghaziyya

For these two banners, I was able to use the normal method of applying a black gutta resist and fill the interiors of the designs with paint. Doing the layout and resist for the gurges on Sumayya’s banner was quite a lot of work, but I like how it came out. Thank you Markus for registering a design that was significantly less work to paint than most people’s. Hara did the edging and the braids for these two banners, so I could focus on other projects.

bookmark_borderTabi for Tsukime

Posted on by Elliott Evans

One of our friends in the SCA, Oribe Tsukime, received a writ for elevation to the Order of the Laurel. The writ was issued back in the Spring, but she was not able to have her actual elevation until this past weekend. This gave me plenty of time to make these white silk tabi for her to wear as part of her elevation garb.

Tabi in fine white silk

This was the first time I had ever made tabi for another person, the first time I had made tabi in a few years, and the process was complicated by Tsukime living somewhat far from my home. Footwear is always difficult to fit, and trying to do it by sending prototypes back and forth in the mail took a few months.

I was able to complete this project with days to spare, however, and she wore them during her vigil and elevation ceremony. They are all fine silk left over from the uenohakama project, sewn by hand with white silk thread. I don’t know how long they will last, and they probably never can be washed, but I was asked to make them and they were ready in time, so I am happy.

bookmark_borderDelayed Baronial Regalia

Posted on by Elliott Evans

Normally, I try to hand over these things by Agincourt, but with Baronial Investiture just weeks later I wound up holding off on presenting these until I could present them to the new Baronage.

First is this set of six silk braids I completed in September. These are all 8-strand marudai braids done in silk.

Second is this set of 8-strand marudai braids I completed in October. Some of these are done in silk, and some of them are done in this super-soft silk/alpaca blend yarn we bought back in January. I wanted to experiment and compare 3 ends of silk/alpaca yarn per strand to the 8 ends of lace-weight silk yarn per strand that I normally use.

Finally is this set of eight machine-embroidered belt favors for the Baronial Comet awards. These apparently came in handy, as I saw several of them handed out later in the day.

bookmark_borderBaronial Braids for Agincourt

Posted on by Elliott Evans

As is my tradition, I made some braided silk medallion cords to donate to the Barony at Agincourt. These braids are all 8-tama braids with 8 “ends” of lace weight silk yarn per tama. The braids are all standard 8-tama braids (kaku genji, kaku, shippou, Edo yatsu, yatsu se, shige uchi) with 4 tama of each color, and I set them all up with the same color positioning (KK GG GG KK) so that I could compare how the colors move through these different braids. I gave them my standard “ring and toggle” closures, and added a jump ring for any medallion.

Six silk braids for Agincourt

This is the last Agincourt for our current Baronage, so I’m not sure that they will need all of these cords themselves, but I’ll make more for the next Baronage anyway.

bookmark_borderEboshi for Gwen

Posted on by Elliott Evans

I neglected to post about this at the time, but back in March when we were getting ready for my sweetie’s elevation, I made three more eboshi for our friend Gwen.

Of course, Gwen has been camping with Kaminari for years and has several eboshi, but nothing deemed nice enough to wear while heralding an elevation. So, I made three more for them. One floppy nae eboshi, one linen tate eboshi lined with heavy interfacing, and one mesh tate eboshi for summer wear. The mesh eboshi has a silk band for the extra-fancy.

bookmark_borderThird Takadai Braid

Posted on by Elliott Evans

For my third takadai braid, I decided to both continue my progression through Rodrick Owen’s book, but go a little less dainty with the braid. Changing two variables at once is always risky, and this did lead to some regret.

Takadai rep braid in reeled silk thread

It is about five feet long. The tension is inconsistent so the width varies, but it’s about 1.125″ wide and 0.375″ thick. Heavy.

The structure is called a “rep braid”. Each time you open a shed, 3 bobbins pass through it. This creates the big knobbly stitches and thickness.

I used 16 ends of reeled-silk thread per tama, and this braid is done with 43 tama. I used the new 100-gram tama that Sweetie gave me as a present.

I think that I was not beating hard enough at the beginning, and I was beating too hard at the end. I guess this will get more consistent with practice. If I did this with half as many ends per tama, it probably would be easier.