Sea Glass Pendant

I’ve been asked to teach a small one-day workshop to introduce the Space Coast Weavers and Fiber Artists Guild to braiding on a maru dai. While I’d love to do the Pieces of Eight class with them, there just isn’t time to teach all of the 8-tama structures from that class in just a few hours. My plan is to allow these students to complete a project to take home that will remind them of how pleasant the process of braiding on a maru dai can be, and hope that some of them will want to learn more about kumihimo on the maru dai later on. So I’ve decided on an easy necklace using only 8 tama and two structures. The same project will be ideal for another class which has been requested by a shop in High Springs for their Fall Festival.

Even though the braiding is simple, I think the finished necklace is something to be proud of. It begins with 9 or 10 inches (23 to 25 cm) of the standard yatsu kongoh spiral braid, then 5.5 inches (14 cm) of kara yatsu to mount the 40mm sea glass donut pendant, and finishes with another 9 or 10 inches (23 to 25 cm) of a yatsu kongoh variation: done counter-clockwise to change the direction of the spiral. I like the symmetry of the spiral moving in opposite directions on either side of the necklace. When the three segments are complete, the braid is steamed and the ends glued into end caps linked to a button clasp by jump rings. The flat segment is folded in half and passed through the hole in the donut from the front and the ends of the braid pass through the loop to attach the pendant.

Here are the particulars for this sample necklace:

I wound a 70–inch (1.8m) warp of 40wt machine embroidery rayon in two colors: Robison Anton #2475 Mocha Cream and #2305 Blue Frost. I used eight 70g tama and a counterweight of about 340g. The finished length of the braid was about 21 inches (54cm) long with 20 inches (51cm) of waste, giving me a take up ratio of slightly more than 2:1.

The yatsu kongoh structure is quite familiar to those who use the kumihimo disk, but instructions for the maru dai are found on page 32 of Makiko Tada’s Comprehensive Treatise on Braids Volume I: Maru Dai Braids, page 35 of Jacqui Carey’s Creative Kumihimo and page 28 of Carey’s Beginner’s Guide to Braiding: The Craft of Kumihimo, as well as many other books.

The kara yatsu structure is found on page 43 of Makiko Tada’s Comprehensive Treatise on Braids Volume I: Maru Dai Braids, page 43 of Jacqui Carey’s Creative Kumihimo, page 54 of Carey’s Beginner’s Guide to Braiding: The Craft of Kumihimo, and page 68 of Rodrick Owen’s Braids: 250 Patterns from Japan, Peru & Beyond.

The sea glass donut pendant is from WildAboutBeads, the end caps are from Silver Enchantments and the clasp is from Gifts of Avalon.