Anyone out there know how to braid?

July 9, 2008 6:24 PM

Does anyone out there have instructions for braiding this pattern (the belt)?

If that photo's too small, this is similar.
Alternately, 1) a traditional name for this pattern or 2) even a source for something like this which I could reverse-braid-engineer, preferably belt-sized, would be okay.

posted by pullayup to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

It looks like a thousand friendship bracelets I made when I was a kid. Here are some patterns that might be what you're looking for: one, two, three, four.
posted by phunniemee at 6:45 PM on July 9, 2008

It's just a flat plait, I think of 20 strands, in two colors arranged in 5-end bundles. You'd start out with twenty ends, in colors A and B, and arrange them like this:

AAAAABBBBBBBBAAAAA

cross the two center ends over each other, and then weave the ends seperately out to the sides; repeat. This creates the plaid look - the two colors meet up with themselves to create solid areas and then split again in a predictable pattern (alternately, take the two outer ends and weave them to the center; cross them over each other, repeat). This type of flat plaiting is often called finger weaving (scroll to bottom). Here's the alternate method.
posted by peachfuzz at 6:59 PM on July 9, 2008