Experimenting with the Kumi Kreator by Cool Maker

I resisted the impulse to buy this thing for half a year, then finally pulled the trigger last week:

 

 I paid $25 for the "2 in 1" version, but it turns out the machine functions the same as the $20 version. The differences are that the "2 in 1" is purple (admittedly pretty) instead of turquoise, and it comes with black bobbins as well as white ones. The bobbins themselves are identical, but the black ones have finer yarn (so more will fit on the bobbin), so that you can braid a necklace length as well as the bracelet length that the thicker yarn on the white bobbins will do. The bobbins themselves don't make any difference, and I'd argue it's a lot easier to see what I'm doing with the white ones. The "2 in 1" also includes 2 of the plastic clasps in a rose gold color in addition to the silver color ones that come with the basic machine. The clasps don't appeal to me, and neither does the yarn, so I'm reloading bobbins with my own yarns to try. That means that in effect I paid $5 extra for purple.

I found the machine to work surprisingly well. I had expected the usual plastic mechanical kid's toy build quality, which was always a recipe for disappointment when I was a kid. Instead, it works very well, although it takes patience and a careful reading of the little manual before starting. I've had no jams so far, and no other problems. It's noisy, and ergonomically challenging to use. A clamp to hold it down may help with the latter, while exacerbating the former.

I've occasionally run into a problem with the carriers running into the working threads, which Cool Maker's site describes as a thread jam, and each time it was because I had forgotten to follow the directions to get the arm to start lifting up the braid end once the machine was loaded, or had forgotten to reset the arm once it had reached the end of its travel.

The yarn isn't bad, it's some sort of stiff synthetic that seems ideal for bracelets that will get a lot of abrasion during wear, but I'm more interested in trying out my weaving yarns.

The bobbins have a channel on the inside for wedging your starting end into to begin winding, and a channel on the outside for holding the cut end so your bobbin doesn't unravel:

The bobbins are tiny, they're hard to hang onto while winding and they don't hold much yarn, so these channels are extremely helpful.

The bobbins snap into carriers, which can be removed from the machine in case of a jam. There are little keepers in the floor of the center of the machine that keep them from coming out accidentally:

I couldn't figure out how the patterns work at first, so I did a bunch of testing. It turns out it braids a standard 12 strand Kongoh-gumi, but with an S spiral instead of a Z spiral:

From left to right:
1. A bracelet using the included bracelet yarn, in one of the patterns they provide, using their stickers to keep the ends from unraveling. 7".
2. A sample using a mix of silk-wrapped and rayon-wrapped fancy threads. 18"
3. A sample using cotton embroidery floss. 31.5".
4. A sample using 5/2 perle cotton. 54".
5. A test piece using 3/2 perle cotton in 12 different colors in order to map the braid. 23".
6. A corrected smaller test piece in 3/2 perle cotton.
7. A sample using 6 ply rayon floss (a weaving yarn). 41".
8. A sample using 6 ply rayon floss, overloading the bobbins to see if I could increase the length. 46", but about 5" is unusable, so overloading may not give much benefit.

In order to design patterns for it, I recommend using Craft Design Online's Kongoh-gumi designer web page:
https://craftdesignonline.com/kumihimo/kongoh-gumi-friendship-bracelets/

Start by changing the number of threads from 16 to 12. Your braid will be a mirror image of the one you design there.
But you need to know how to translate their pattern into what the machine expects. This took some work to figure out.

Here is the 12-color braid in the Kumihimo Designer:

I think of this as if it were a clock. Yellow is at 1:00, orange at 2:00, and so on all the way around the circle to green at 12:00.
You would think you should load it in the machine with yellow to the right of the arm, and green to the left at the top, away from the crank handle. But that results in  an error where one row of the pattern is shifted.

Instead, you need to load it like this:

I'm calling this Position A. You can see I've labeled each carrier so I could track where each thread goes. I don't think that's necessary, that was just for figuring out what exactly is happening so I could get the braid I was expecting. Now that that's figured out, as long as you get the machine into the starting position described in the manual (blue spools lined up with empty blue slots), you can start with 12:00 to the right of the arm, followed by 1:00, 2:00, and so on all the way around, ending with 11:00 at the left of the arm.

I would love it if Cool Maker were to produce a 16 strand Kongoh-gumi machine, with larger spools. That would be amazing! As for this machine, it's fun. I will test out some more braids. I may use it to make some bracelets or necklaces. But unfortunately I don't think it can do the things weavers really use kumihimo for, like purse straps, edging for garments, shoe laces, etc. Unless you go with really fine yarn, which would make really skinny braids. Those would look better in the 16 strand patterns, though, because at that fine scale you need something really graphical for the pattern to show up at all.

I haven't tried adding beads, and I expect that to be troublesome at best, since they'll drag the working threads down into the paths of the carriers. But it would be a worthwhile experiment sometime.

Tote bags

Recently, I've been taking some free classes on Craftsy.com, and enjoying them thoroughly.

Their free classes are short, about an hour or so of video content, broken up into smaller lessons, and once you sign up for a class (free or otherwise), you have access to it forever.

I have learned more about cleaning my sewing machine, troubleshooting when it doesn't work right, using different feet with it, etc.

I also learned how to sew a really cute reversible tote bag, and it's super easy and very well explained! That class, called "Bag-Making Basics: Reversible Tote & Zipper Pouch" also includes a smaller pencil bag with a zipper, but I haven't gotten to that part yet. (Sadly, I cannot seem to link directly to that class, but you can find it on the free classes page linked above) It's a great class for a beginner.

First tote bag:

 

First bag, turned "inside" out:

Second tote bag:

 

Second tote bag, "inside" out:

I hope you'll join me in the class and show me your creations too!

3D Orthogonal Draft - less muddy?

I realized my post yesterday was probably pretty unclear, without a draft. Here is my best attempt at a draft:

That does convey more-or-less what I'm doing, in that if you were to thread this up and weave it you should get the same result, but it does not convey well how it actually works on the loom.

In reality, all the purple picks in each of those triangles of purple stack up on top of each other, so I have 7 picks of purple one atop another, as I look down at the fell. Then I change the tabby shed in the black/gray/white threads on 1234. Because they fell is really tall, from all those purple wefts, the black/gray/white threads end up going all the way from top to bottom of this stack of yarns, or vice versa, when I change sheds. A little dot of black or gray or white shows on the top & bottom surfaces, the rest of the thread goes vertically straight down between those surfaces.

What about that weird tie-up?

For a countermarche, this is not a normal tie-up. In order to weave this with one treadle for each weft shot, I would need 14 treadles. But I also want to try weaving twill on shafts 1234, so I wanted to keep some treadles available for that.

Also, in reality I'm weaving shafts 5-10 in order for one "pick", but then 10-5 on the next, so I don't get a big float on the side when the weft goes back to the top.

A skeleton tie-up seemed like a good way to deal with that. With a skeleton tie-up, you can treadle with 2 feet to get more combinations than you have treadles for.

I didn't know if that was possible on a countermarche, so I Googled it, and found a great article by Madelyn Van Der Hoogt on the subject, here is a link to the PDF:

http://www.weaversschool.com/docs/Countermarch.pdf

My weaving software doesn't show the bubbles one would normally draw on a countermarche tie-up. If it did, you would see that the 2 treadles for shafts 1-4 are tied up fully, so when 1&3 go down, 2&4 go up, and vice versa. On shafts 5-10, those treadles are tied so that any shaft that isn't going down is going up. So in a sense I've tied up as if I had 2 countermarche looms, one for shafts 1-4, and one for shafts 5-10.

Yes, this means I've effectively avoided doing a proper countermarche tie-up! I'll get to that eventually, I'm sure.

Orthogonal Weaving

A friend loaned me her 12-shaft countermarche loom while she is moving.

My first thought: Lovely!

My second thought: Eek!
I've never tied up a countermarche loom before.

My third thought: Eek!
I couldn't think what to do with 12 shafts. I have up to 8, and I want to make the most of this opportunity.

So, I Googled. First I googled "weaving", and went to Images. There I found several images of handwovens that inspired me. (Who'd have thunk I'd be interested in Crackle? But maybe I'll do that sometime soon.)

Next I Googled "woven", and went to Images. There I found more things that inspired me - but often they were images of things that were not woven. Like quilts, for instance.

But then I found this:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-modern-woven-fabrics-technology
It's the full text of a book about advances in weaving, and about new ways of using weaving in other fields, like architecture.

Then an image in Chapter 5, Multiaxis Three Dimensional (3D) Woven Fabric really got my attention:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-modern-woven-fabrics-technology/multiaxis-three-dimensional-3d-woven-fabric#F7
The image on the right, a cross-section of a side view of a loom designed to weave the fabric shown in the images above these, was something I could almost understand. My way to achieve better understanding was to set the loom up and weave it.

Here is the result:

This fabric requires 7 weft picks to make 1 "row" of fabric. I was having trouble with the orange/yellow warp yarns not getting caught by the weft, so I used 2 bobbins (one blue, one purple) going in opposite directions in each shed. The orange/yellow warp ends up completely covered.

The black/gray/white warp is actually weaving in the Z-axis. It's doing plain weave, and after 7 shots (between warp layers) in Tabby A, it switches to Tabby B. So it's going up, then down, through the woven structure.

The orange/yellow warp yarns are not weaving around anything. They are straight, and 6 layers deep (threaded on 6 shafts). I'm using the loom to lift each layer so I can put the bobbins through between layers.

The weft yarn is also straight, and not actually weaving around anything (except at the edges when they turn to back through a different shed). The section of toothpick weft conveys that more clearly, I hope.

So, the only yarn that is actually required to be soft and pliable is the black/gray/white yarn. In architecture, this structure could be used with rebar in place of the orange/yellow warp and also in place of the weft, as long as something more pliable (wire?) was used in the Z-axis, the way the black/gray/white warp is here.

Clear as mud?

If there was a way to make all these fibers stick together (i.e. glue, felting, etc.), a loom could weave a solid that then could be machined into shapes. You could weave the 2x4's to build your house with. Except that, even though this fabric is solid, it is pliable. I can twist it. I guess if you wove it with fiberglass and then melted it into a semi-solid blob, it wouldn't flex so much.

So, what's it for? Any ideas? I'm working on a list of thoughts, so far it's things like making a square rope, or decorative ideas. With enough shafts, it would be possible to weave a bag with thick solid sides. Joe suggested a yoga mat, which would probably work well. That made me think of a saddle blanket. I don't think this would be hard-wearing enough for that, though.

If I treat the 6 shafts with orange/yellow as a tripleweave, I could weave a folded fabric like a letter Z, and then stitch the layers together with the black/white, or leave them unstitched so they could unfold. Woven pleats! But if one pleat requires 6 shafts, a fabric with several would be a real shaft hog.

Please share your ideas!

Laura

Cute Ring

I made this ring last night, following the instructions I found here:

http://ellad2.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Cute-ring.pdf

Which I found as a link from this page:

http://pinterest.com/andaira/

It was under "Anillos/Rings-2". There are quite a few interesting collections here for jewelry, kumihimo, sewing, etc.

It was surprisingly easy, just required some seed beads and a few small lucite beads. Took a couple of hours, I think. I had never done peyote stitch before, as far as I can recall, but I figured it out from the pictures (the steps in the instructions aren't entirely helpful on that). Once the band itself was made, joining it up into a ring and adding the decorations is very clearly explained in the instructions.

Today I discovered that the peyote stitch was better explained in her other free tutorials here:

http://ellad2.com/how-to-bead-free-beading-tutorials/

From there you can get to her tutorial shop, where she sells tutorials for other lovely things.

Secret Productivity Weapon: Craft Cart

I have been way more productive lately with these small projects like kumihimo, without really feeling like I'm doing that much more. Why? Because I assembled a small rolling workstation, with various tools and materials I use often. At times when all I feel like doing is vegging out in front of the TV, I now can use that time productively, repairing my broken junk jewelry or experimenting with beads or cords.

When not in use, the cart folds up and doubles as an end table in the living room.

I used a nifty old typewriter cart with drop leaves on both sides, which my dad was getting rid of. I added a board for a top (it didn't have a top), a work light, some plastic drawers underneath, and a strip of LED lighting under the top, to better see the contents of the drawers. I also added a couple of magnetic hooks to the backs of the front legs to hold a small pair of scissors on one side, and some other small items on the other side (these aren't visible):

You can see my cat Spots in the foreground, trying to get some attention!

Then I added a power strip to the back, plus a wall pocket to hold my notes, and a matching magnetic bin for holding miscellaneous items too large for the drawers (it's a black mesh thing stuck to the edge of the tabletop). All this stuff is invisible when the cart is pushed against the wall:

I would like to add a glass top, so I can see down into the drawers more easily.

When I'm done using it, I clear everything but the lamp off the top, fold down the sides, and it's just a fun end table. When the LED strip is not on, the drawers underneath are not very noticeable.

Kumihimish Bracelets

I've made several bracelets with this technique. Here are some: