{"id":8695,"date":"2015-02-24T09:01:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T09:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=8695"},"modified":"2015-02-23T19:08:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T19:08:27","slug":"more-kumihimo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2015\/02\/24\/more-kumihimo\/","title":{"rendered":"More Kumihimo"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were so many intrigued comments about my Marudai and the braids it made, that I thought I would show you some more of the braids I’ve made.<\/p>\n

Kumihimo is a traditional Japanese technique. The braids have a lot of traditional uses in Japan – in fact, an opera singer friend of mine tells me his Samurai costume for his part in a brand-new opera about a crucial part of Japanese history was correct down to properly made kumihimo braids in all the right places!<\/p>\n

\"Kumihimo<\/a>

Kumihimo Braids<\/p><\/div>\n

If you search for Kumihimo on eBay, what you will find, by and large, are bracelets. Now, I’m really not a bracelet sort of girl. I have a few chunky, “statement” bangles, which are worn specifically, explicitly and only when I’m planning nothing more strenuous than lifting a knife and fork. Cord bracelets – no.<\/p>\n

However, I do have a lot of heavy, dramatic pendants, and the idea of making cords to point up the colours in the pendants – yes, definitely. I’ve found that sewing machine thread makes a wonderful material for these purposes – it comes in a huge range of colours, and it’s fine, supple and strong. It also lends itself well to heathering – combining several colours in a single strand – and best of all, it’s relatively inexpensive.<\/p>\n

\"Yellow<\/a>

Yellow and Green Silk<\/p><\/div>\n

The fine green and gold cord is silk, made using some of the thread from the Tudor Rose<\/a> kit – I used it to trim the Tudor Rose panel.<\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>

Orange and Green Cotton<\/p><\/div>\n

The next three, and the top, chunky pinky-maroon, are all necklace cords made using sewing machine cotton, although the maroon mookaite pendant I made the two maroon ones for has spurned both of them with scorn. I’ll try again, because I enjoy kumihimo.<\/p>\n

\"Greens<\/a>

Greens (cotton)<\/p><\/div>\n

The white one is silk, to go with a pearl-mounted enamelled cross pendant given to me by an old family friend, and which I wore on my wedding day. The cord I used then has become grubby over the years, so this one will see me through a few more. The cream and peach usually carries a glass pendant. It’s one of two I’ve tried for that pendant, in fact – but this “making things match” is never quite as easy as we hope, is it!<\/p>\n

\"Apricot<\/a>

Apricot Cotton<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Two<\/a>

Two Colour Silk<\/p><\/div>\n

The round apricot rope is huge – about for or five times the size of the other round cords I’ve done. I might mount it with cord ends and turn it into a choker one of these days..<\/p>\n

The stripy one is a fairly fine flat braid in filament silk. I worked this one as an experiment, changing the tension (more or less weight on the end) to see what effect it would have. In the end I came to the conclusion I wasn’t being dramatic enough with my experiments!<\/p>\n

\"Flat<\/a>

Flat Teal and Green<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Textured<\/a>

Textured Teal<\/p><\/div>\n

These flat braids were given extra texture with saree silk knitting yarns. Again, they tell me that some of my experimentation needs to be a bit more dramatic. I was hoping to emphasize the different textures, but used too many strands of the cotton yarn, so there wasn’t enough difference between the strands.<\/p>\n

There’s scope for endless experimentation here – and I haven’t shown you the miles of gold braid I’ve made…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were so many intrigued comments about my Marudai and the braids it made, that I thought I would show you some more of the braids I’ve made. Kumihimo is a traditional Japanese technique. The braids have a lot of traditional uses in Japan – in fact, an opera singer friend of mine tells me… Continue Reading More Kumihimo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[25,142],"class_list":["post-8695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-posts","tag-experiments","tag-kumihimo","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8695"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8756,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8695\/revisions\/8756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}