So, I'm going to the Bay area for Xmas this year and I was thinking: what do I want to do when I go there. Y'know other than shop. 8) And what I thought is that I'd really like to take one of Marion's workshops. Sure, I could probably experiment and figure out how to do the beaded edging on the donuts or how to get the lovely smoothly aligned yarns on her braids, but why should I? 8)

Marion is an artist who does beautiful fibre art jewelry, much of which is based on kumihimo, Chinese knotting and micromacrame. Also, wonderfully, she is unafraid to share her techniques through teaching. Originally from Switzerland, she now lives in the San Francisco area and does Asian fibre arts. What's not to love? 8)

This is a very long post, don't miss the video at the bottom!

eBay seller ryujapan-99 sells kimono and components (obi, kumihimo, fabric, etc). At one point the above lot of obi jime was up for auction and sadly I did not win. I wanted a closer look at that green obijime. I'm thinking that it's not actually kumihimo, but maybe a phoenix tail sinnet. Can you tell from looking? Let me know what you think!

See swathes of kumihimo in their signature showcase as part of samurai armour and armament at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, California. Exhibiting through September 20, 2009. (via)

Articles
A. G. Lindsay writes an article about how to finish your braids (15 pages).
http://www.weavershand.com/kumiendings1.pdf (via)

Events
A see and share style event in Montreal on April and I couldn't go. 8( But at least we can see the pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.ca/michellebeauvais/April252009?authkey=Gv1sRgCL...

Blogs
The math behind maypole braids
http://divisbyzero.com/2009/05/04/the-maypole-braid-group/

Dogs and kumihimo don't mix. The sensitive may want to avert their eyes.
http://tapestrybeads.blogspot.com/2009/05/winston-tried-kumihimo-today.html

About the Korean (dahoe) origins of kumihimo.
http://pearl.livejournal.com/348806.html

A bit more detail on the same.
http://themaedupshop.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/traditional-korean-cords/

A lengthy introduction/summary on kumihimo from an SCAer studying the topic.
http://beadybunch.org/?p=175

Glass bead artist, Dora Schubert takes up kumihimo and tells us all about it.
http://doraschubert.blogspot.com/2009/05/its-already-may.html

Events
April 16, 2009: The Quinte Arts Council and the John M. Parrott Art Gallery present another Third Thursday Culture Jam event. The Quinte Needlearts Guild with the Belleville Weavers and Spinners have planned an interactive program where you can participate in the creation of pieces of art for use anywhere but on your wall. The program will feature Kumihimo, the art of Japanese braiding.
http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1510198

April 24, 2009: a kumihimo workshop for kids (10 and up) at the Naples Library in Naples, NY
http://napleskidspot.blogspot.com/2009/04/kumihimo-workshop.html

Procrastination is a strange thing. I was doing pretty well with the daily thing for at least 2 months and then mid-March I stumbled big-time. Then the longer I wasn't posting, the less incentive there was to post. I came up with a few ideas to help me keep up, but never did them. I tied a number of knots including more Ashley knots and some seasonal ones not to mention finishing the give away tassels. While I haven't scanned the seasonal knots, I had long ago scanned the give away tassels. Why not post them? It's quick, no? As the offspring are fond of saying: "I dunno..."

So, my sweetie, who knows me well, was watching the World Baseball Classic and notices that many of the Korean baseball players are wearing string necklaces, some of which look braided (see left). Are they braided? Are they fabric tubes? Are they something else? Why are the players wearing them? Are Korean men in general wearing them these days? Are Koreans in general wearing them? Is it some sort of modernized tradition (pretty sure they didn't have those plastic clasps until recently, relatively speaking)?

http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=29&sid=143036
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/mPK_j5RnIMi/World+Baseball+Classic+Tokyo+...
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/mPK_j5RnIMi/World+Baseball+Classic+Tokyo+...

Blogs

Things to see
Seminal kumihimo author, Catherine Martin, who these days braids with gold and platinum wire studded with diamonds, is one of the featured artists at The Goldsmith's Company's Summer Exhibition, Creation II. The show is at the Goldsmiths’ Hall in London, England running from Friday May 29 to Saturday July 11, 2009. Admission is free.
http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=46248

Here's a small profile of Catherine with some pictures of her work.
http://www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/pages/artistIntro.aspx?artistID=96

Blogs
An 8 strand braid in perle cotton made on disk.
http://nossubgallery.blogspot.com/2009/03/kumihimo-madness.html

A weaver cannot resist the braiding kits at her local yarn shop.
http://dustbunniesundermyloom.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-bag-of-happy.html

Things to buy

Blogs
Sally, The Fearless Knitter, finally uses one of her 2 marudai after 15 years. You're not alone, Sally!!
http://fearlessknitter.blogspot.com/2009/03/24-cool-beans-after-15-years...

Kumihimo in Mongolian (.mn is the country code for Mongolia)! I would have expected written Mongolian (or romanized Mongolian?) to look different (a little research shows that modern written Mongolian is modified Cyrillic, so this is written in some kind of romanization scheme).
http://michelle.monstudnet.mn/2009/03/06/kumihimo/

Loopykd is experimenting with kumihimo.
http://home-spun.com/?p=427

Things to buy
A piece of hairwork that is extremely reminiscent of kumihimo.

Pretty Pictures
I am subscribed to a number of braiding/kumihimo mailing lists, but for one reason or another have not been reading them for most of a year now. Which, of course, means that they've been building up in an unmanageable mass waiting for me. I've been trying to chip away at them now that I've decided I should in my usual manner (try to keep current and plow through a minimum number of old messages while I'm at it, eventually I'll be completely caught up until the next time I go out of town or whatever). So, some of the links I'm posting here are quite old. Them's the breaks.

Makiko Tada, goddess of braiding, has many albums with many photos of braiding events and braids.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Makikokumihimo

Publications
I've only just discovered the Curious Weaver Journal, a magazine that was published 1995-1996. It's all online now in PDFs. The contents of each issue are listed at the below link.
http://curiousweaver.id.au/?s=krokbragd

Blogs
A Canadian crafter experiments with her square foam kumihimo plate
http://ericasplaces.blogspot.com/2009/02/news-and-views-on-friday.html

I was contemplating starting a blog over at the Kumihimo Home Page for this stuff, but it's more effort to maintain more blogs and decorative braiding goes with decorative knotting like chocolate and ice cream, am I right? 8) 8) Plus in my mind's eye when I was thinking of newsletter sections years ago I thought: knotty thoughts (knots), twisted thoughts (twisted and spun cords), and braided thoughts (braiding, but then maybe I had a more risqué term that I can't think of right now. 8) In any case, I've put them in separate posts so one need not deal with the other if so desired.

Learning
A how to video for (?) 8 strand kongo (?) in German on a foam loom.
http://en.sevenload.com/videos/bvBaoD7-Kumihimo-Anleitung

Someone at the Dexter Senior Center in Michigan is teaching kumihimo.
http://www.dexterleader.com/stories/020509/loc_20090205014.shtml