My First Attempt with the Kumihimo Disk

The universe decided today was my day to learn Kumihimo. Works for me.

I started by using the group of yarn that came packaged with the Kumihimo disk. I highly recommend that first-timers begin this way. The yarn is a good fiber to practice with and now Ginger has a colorful new toy.

Then I felt a little bit creative and decided to make a bracelet with beading wire and seed beads. I used 24 inches each of four different wires: Soft Flex Beading Wire in Dark Blue, Extreme 925 wire, Metallics wire in Antique Brass, and Soft Touch wire strung with size 8/o seed beads. The top of the Kumihimo board has numbers and little dots that help you keep track of where to place the wires. It's actually quite easy and even meditative once you get the hang of it.

Here's a shot of my braid in progress (the braid comes out the bottom of the disk and rests inside the glass vase) with the bright blue Colorado sky as its backdrop. It must be said that Colorado has over 300 days of sunshine a year. Sure, it is only about 40 degrees outside, but it is still bright and sunny! Anyway, I placed a binder clip at the end of the braid and attached a Bead Stopper to the end of every wire in order the keep a good amount of tension.


And here is the finished bracelet. I used a 3mm crimp tube to connect all eight wires to an eye pin, then strung a cone onto the eye pin and formed a wire wrapped loop to attach each end of the braid to one half of the clasp. If you look closely, you can see where I messed up a couple of times (I probably turned the disk the wrong way or something), but all in all, a pretty successful first encounter with the Kumihimo board. I'll definitely be trying this project again!