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Starting a New Hobby: The Art of Kumihimo

I started a new hobby. Kumihimo: a form of Japanese braiding.

A couple of years ago, I went to F.A.C.T.S. (a comic-con) where a friend of mine was doing a workshop on Kumihimo, something I’ve never heard of before.
I tried it out there and immediately fell in love with this braiding technique.
I decided to buy this special disk for the braiding, but never ended up actually using it, until now.

The Kumihimo disks. The round one is for round braids, the square one is for flat braids.
(Multiple images)

Round disk – Round braids

I started with the round disk first, and a simple pattern, before moving on to the more difficult patterns with multiple strings. I’m happy with the results so far.
The first one I did was braid with only 2 colors and 2 threads, to end with a braid of 16 threads in total.

Here you can see all the braids I made with the round disk. I used satin cord and cotton cord. With the satin cord, it’s really easy to get a nice finished result, but the braids will turn out fairly thick (depending how much strings you use). The cotton cord is a bit harder to work with, as it doesn’t stay in place as easily, but you’ll get thinner and more delicate designs.

Square disk – Square braids

After making a series of braids with the round disk, I decided to try out the square disk to make some flat braids.
Turns out it’s MUCH harder. Best is to use satin cord to start, because it’s way easier to get straight edges that way.
I’ll need a lot of practice to master this technique.

As you can see, I totally failed to get straight edges here.

If you want to check out some tutorials on Kumihimo: here are some great YouTube channels.

Prumihimo

ParacordPlanet

CSLdesigns

I’m happy I started this new hobby. I find it very therapeutic.

Please let me know about your hobbies and what helps you relax!

Thanks for reading!

<3

Marieke

2 Comments

  1. Yetunde
    September 9, 2020 / 10:15 am

    Wow! I will try it sometime. Thank you

    Reply
  2. Yetunde
    September 10, 2020 / 9:00 pm

    What a great hobby

    Reply

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