Pages

Thursday, June 7, 2012

First Kumihimo Attempt

I was so happy this morning when the mail arrived and I noticed that one of my orders I've made arrived. My second order from Bricol'Art. I'd ordered a Kumihimo disc and some C-LON Beading Cord in a couple of colors to start with.
I've been wanting to try out Kumihimo for quite some time now and finally I was able to! I have to say, that it is a real fun technique and also very relaxing. With the Kumihimo disc from "The BeadSmith" you also get the basic instructions so you can start.

I went to Youtube and checked around for some tutorials, and there's a lot of different schemes out there to follow, and the video tutorials for the basic 8 strand braided cord is very easy to follow, and you can grasp this technique pretty quickly.

For my very first Kumihimo braid I went with three different colors; mahogany, chinese coral, tangerine (name of the colors of the cord). I was really pleased after a couple of rows, when the braid began to take shape, so I kept on going until I had a length of 44cm in total. There I stopped, and began to remove my cords from the board.
To make sure it wouldn't ravel up again, I secured each end with some matte tape and then trimmed each end with the tape on so I could safely add some E6000 to the tips and then slide them into the exterminators.

As this was my first Kumihimo project, I wanted to keep it pretty simple. I found a ceramic doughnut that I bought about a year ago since I found it so pretty, even though I wasn't sure I would be able to use it. Guess I was wrong, heh =P
The only thing I did was to make a simple loop through the doughnut and then move both ends of the cord through the loop and tightened it and measured it so they would be even long. I also decided to add some E6000 at the loop, so the pendant would keep sitting in the same position, so it wouldn't have to be adjusted over and over again.
Closeup of the cord itself.

1 comment:

  1. Hello,Ania:
    The Kumihimo seems to be not easy.I've read about it a little.This is not only the art,but also a some kind of life philosophy.
    Your pendant with the coral 'dognut' looks so simple,but there is a special taste and a special'aura' in this kind of raw elegance.
    Warm Hugs-Halinka-

    ReplyDelete