Uploaded January 2012 | Updated September 2026, 58 minutes ago
Part 2--shows braid's (partly) finished pattern.
This second part shows the zigzag/ zebra-stripe braid pattern that you get when you start the braid with all the light-colored shanks of the loops on the top and all the dark-colored shanks on the bottom side of the fingers. You can get other patterns by arranging these same loops differently at the start of the braid--try different combinations of dark and light sides of the loops facing up or down before you start braiding. My blog shows pics of some of the other great patterns you can get:
loopbraider.com/2011/01/11/a-spanish-braid-breed-breadth
This braid is the base, component braid of the 2-person, 14-loop Letterbraid, or alphabet braid, from the 17th Century. Two braiders would stand next to each other, each one braiding with 7 loops, and exchanging their adjacent index finger loops after each braiding cycle.
The 14-loop letterbraid and two other 10-loop letterbraids were only recently decoded from the original documents by Joy Boutrup, and published in:
European Loop Braiding - Investigations and Results, Part II: Instructions for Letter Braids in 17th Century Manuscripts, by Noemi Speiser and Joy Boutrup
The instructions in the monograph are very concise, with no illustrations or diagrams of the movements.
I do the first and third loop transfer a tiny bit differently than Joy Boutrup describes, this does not change the resulting braid. More info is on my blog:
loopbraider.com/2011/01/20/instructions-7-loop-spanish-left-half-of-the-14-loop-letterbraid
Part 2--shows braid's (partly) finished pattern.
This second part shows the zigzag/ zebra-stripe braid pattern that you get when you start the braid with all the light-colored shanks of the loops on the top and all the dark-colored shanks on the bottom side of the fingers. You can get other patterns by arranging these same loops differently at the start of the braid--try different combinations of dark and light sides of the loops facing up or down before you start braiding. My blog shows pics of some of the other great patterns you can get:
loopbraider.com/2011/01/11/a-spanish-braid-breed-breadth
This braid is the base, component braid of the 2-person, 14-loop Letterbraid, or alphabet braid, from the 17th Century. Two braiders would stand next to each other, each one braiding with 7 loops, and exchanging their adjacent index finger loops after each braiding cycle.
The 14-loop letterbraid and two other 10-loop letterbraids were only recently decoded from the original documents by Joy Boutrup, and published in:
European Loop Braiding - Investigations and Results, Part II: Instructions for Letter Braids in 17th Century Manuscripts, by Noemi Speiser and Joy Boutrup
The instructions in the monograph are very concise, with no illustrations or diagrams of the movements.
I do the first and third loop transfer a tiny bit differently than Joy Boutrup describes, this does not change the resulting braid. More info is on my blog:
loopbraider.com/2011/01/20/instructions-7-loop-spanish-left-half-of-the-14-loop-letterbraid
