After years of neglect, and not really knowing what to do with this little corner of cyberspace, I finally figured out what I would like to do. Thanks to the wonders of facebook, I have found a wonderful community of fellow kumihimo braiders, with new ones coming in every day. Unfortunately so many people don't have the luxury of being taught in person or getting their hands on a good kumihimo book. In order to help spread the word of kumihimo I've decided to post some of the knowledge I've gained in a less ephemeral form so it can be saved and shared with the wider world.
I have been doing kumihimo braiding since 2006, when I saw a picture of a braid being used as a necklace. I'd had a long love affair with Japanese culture, and had been beading for six years at that point, so adding kumihimo seemed like a natural. At the time I expected that I would just do a few braids as needed to compliment beaded pendants I made, but the disk had other ideas. I fell hard for braiding, and started teaching it to others in 2008.
It is my hope that this blog will provide accurate and useful information for the beginning to intermediate kumihimo braider looking to add more to his or her repetoire. There are a myriad of kumihimo stands and tools out there, but this blog will focus on the disk (round tool) and plate (square tool) as those are the tools I use most often. I am terrible at graphic design, though, so I don't know how many tutorials will be posted!
