In general, what are braids good for?  Here are some thoughts my friends and I had:

* You can make thin flat braids, and use it as an embellishment/stabalizer for a cardigan sweater (think like the Dale patterns use a ribbon along the edges).

* You can trim gloves with it (it does have some stretch give to it, so it wouldn’t be bad on a cuff). A lot of the non-ribbing cuffed gloves would work well with it.

* If you like to make bags, you could make a much thicker version (adding more strands per bobbin or having more bobbins for a more complex pattern) and use a braid as the handle, or trim along the top/pockets with a thinner braid

* You can use them as the draw strings on knitting pouches/bags.  I have several knitting pouches and they just use boring off the shelf black cord.

* You could use a thin one as a draw string on a hood if you made a cardigan with a hood that way (never seen a knitting pattern like this, but I’m sure it exists somewhere)

* A belt for a sweater for a child, threaded through eyelets made in the waist

* bootie ties (although I’m pretty much against booties in general, as they don’t tend to stay on)

* Home decorating uses; tiebacks for curtains, edging for pillows, and so on

* Make short braids as pulls on backpack zippers; for kids and or yourself.

* Flat braids as bookmarks (I’ve done card weaving to make bookmarks before, same type of principle)

* Making Chinese knots (http://www.chineseknotting.org/)

* Xmas ornaments out of shapes made from braids (no idea how, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?)

Not sure how often I’ll be making braids; but I think a project in the near future might contain one.  I’d love to hear any ideas you might have on what to use them for.

Step 1, yarn:

Step 2:
Measure warp length, using the overkill method of a warping board. I made the warp length just under 2 yards:

A closeup:

Step 3:
Make ties on left side (this is the beginning of the braid, and will become a tassel), and take warp off board.

Step 4: Prepare Marudai

…. time passes …. (not much; only a few hours)

And we have Step 5:

The last picture is horrible; sorry. I’ve included my first sample from class - a purple and white sprial braid just doing clockwise and counter clockwise.  Here’s a closeup of the new braid:

That green is a hard one to photograph. I admit the background I chose here is not helping any.  You can see how the green is framing the two other colors which alternate back and forth in a speckled like fashion.

I still need to steam or wash the braid and block it. It’s a bit lumpy from the tension of the center weight.  I still need to finish off the ends - secure it, and cut the tassels.  That’s about 5-10 mins of work once I find my tapestry needle.

I’ve only made one braid so far, but there are hundreds of patterns to try in the two books that I bought. It was an absolute necessity that I buy some yarn to experiment with.   I was overwhelmed by the choices of Pearl Cotton on cones (they wind off any amount that you want for you). I literally stood there stunned for a few minutes.  After a while, I started picking up a color here and there, looking at it, holding it with others.  Finally, two appealed to me, and then a third popped out.

The colors here aren’t quite accurate - the green looks more yellow to me here than it is in real life. (That’s the one that popped out at me).  I can imagine many ways that these will look good together. I got about 1ounce of each to play around with.  After all, I don’t know what I’m going to do with the braids, except make them

I took a class last night at my LYS. It was on Kumihimo Braiding.  Overall it was really fun; although I wish there had been a bit more up front explanation on how the technical details of the braiding worked. Once I started braiding and saw what was happening; I understood. Here is the braiding stand we put together (and get to keep):

It’s not really pretty - but it’s stable and gets the job done. The other class offered used a simple disk to braid. The teacher said she prefers the stand; but it’s not as portable.  My stand is made up of some press board with one shiny smooth side, and the inside is rough.  It’s taped together with masking tape.  The bobbins are film canisters with pennies inside.   

Long term it probably won’t last (unless I change the tape for something else) but it’s designed to give you the idea of braiding without having to fork out $300 on a really nice braiding stand.   I just did the simple braid. You can see the detail here:

First was the clockwise twist, then we switched it, then I’m switching back and forth working on the transition (there was a special instruction to make it look nicer).  The stick at the top is to hold the braid in place while it was being transported, and the blue thread horizontal across the screen is holding the bobbins in order.  I bought a few books and some more yarn (in really neat colors) to try out some stuff before the next class.