Fingerloop braiding

Beginners Guide to Fingerloop braiding - Lyndsey Kindred

Additional Fingerloop techniques for beginners - Lyndsey Kindred

Placing and attaching cords and braids - Lyndsey Kindred

Guilloche plait or sennit

Guilloche plaits or Sennits were found amongst the fabrics in St Cuthbert's tomb and on the Llangorse textile.

They can be made with weaving tablets threaded through two holes, but they can also be made by fingerlooping with no need for any tools.

Below are instructions for finger looping a Guilloche plait or sennit

1. Get enough yarn. It is a 5 strand plait made with two loops and one weft thread. So get some coarse yarn enough to make 3 loops of thread a foot/30 cm long. (You can use longer, but a foot/30 cm is OK for learning). I would advise you to start with something pretty coarse. To be clear it is the loops that are a foot/30 cm long, so the thread for each loop has to be two feet / 60 cm. So overall you have a little over two yards/2 metres.
2. Choose colours. I like the look of high contrast threads with two lengths in one colour and one in another, you may think differently.
3. Cut your loops. Cut three lengths two feet long, two will be your loops, the third will be your weft thread. Line up the open ends of the two loops with contrasting colours and one end of the third piece of thread. Tie them in an overhand knot,
4. .Tie the loops to something. Tie the loops to something that can hold them and stay put against a slight pull: a chair leg, table leg, door handle or your foot. If you use furniture and find it moves about then put something heavy on it (a pile of books, a bored child, whatever)
5. Get your hands in the right position. Hold your left hand with the fingers pointing up and put the two contrasting loops over two fingers so that one loop is higher than the other.
6. Put loops through one another. using your right hand take the bottom loop, feed it through the top loop and put them back on your left hand so that the one that was at the bottom is now at the top and the one that was at the top is now at the bottom.
7. Put the weft through. take the open ended thread and thread it's free end in between the top and bottom loops then pull it tight.

Repeat steps 6 and 7 until you are bored or run out of thread.

The picture above shows the weft being passed in between the upper and lower loops of the Guilloche plait

6 strand (3 loop) fingerloop braid

6-strand braid - Lyndsey Kindred

Below are instructions for finger looping a six strand plait, which resembles one shown in Poul Nørlund's "Buried Norsemen in Herjolfsnes" from "Meddelelser om Grønland", Volume 67, 1924

Bear in mind that the Herjolfsnes textiles are later than the period portrayed by "The Vikings" as they date from around 1280 to as late as around 1434 (Dates from Page 232 of "Woven into the Earth" by Else Østergard, Aarhus University Press, 2004)

1. Get enough yarn. It is a 6 strand plait so get some coarse yarn enough to make 3 loops of thread a foot/30 cm long and a little over. (you can use longer, but a foot/30 cm is OK for learning). I would advise you to start with something pretty coarse. To be clear it is the loops that are a foot/30 cm long, so the thread for each loop has to be two feet / 60 cm. So overall you have a little over two yards/2 metres.
2. Choose colours. If you want to see the path of the yarn then one of your loops will have to be made half from one colour and half from another with the two colour threads knotted together where the loop turns around.
3. Cut your loops. Make one loop longer than the others: it will give you some spare thread to knot around something like a door handle, a table leg or chair leg or even your foot. Line up the closed ends of the three loops and knot the open ends together with an overhand knot so that you have the two ends of the longer loop dangling free.
4. Tie the loops to something. Tie the two dangling ends of the longer knot around something that can hold them and stay put against a slight pull: a chair leg, table leg, door handle or your foot. If you use furniture and find it moves about then put something heavy on it (a pile of books, a bored child, whatever)
5. Get your hands in the right position. Hold your side by side with the palms facing each other and your fingers relaxed so that they lie above one another and slightly curved. This is the position you will use for braiding.
6. Pick up the loops in starting position. pick up two loops over the first (index) and second (middle) fingers of your right hand. Pick up one loop on the first finger of your left hand.
7. .Braid right to left. Take the top right loop on your first (index) finger) through the bottom right loop and pass it to the left second (middle) finger with a single twist. You get the twist by having the left hand pick up the loop by moving through it from above going right to left.
8. Pull tight. Tighten the braid by moving your hands out away from one another. as far as you can.
9. Put loops back to mirror starting position. The loop on the left hand now has two fingers in it. Take out the second (middle) finger so that it lies around the first (index) finger only. You should now have a reflection of the starting position with one loop on the right first (index) finger and two loops on the left first (index) and second (middle) fingers.
10. Braid left to right. Take the top left loop on your first (index) finger) through the bottom left loop and pass it to the right second (middle) finger with a single twist. You get the twist by having the right second (middle) finger pick up the loop by moving through it from above going left to right.
11. Pull tight. Tighten the braid by moving your hands out away from one another. as far as you can.
12. Put loops back to starting position. The loop on the right hand now has two fingers in it. Take out the second (middle) finger so that it lies around the first (index) finger only. You should now have the starting position with one loop on the left first (index) finger and two loops on the right first (index) and second (middle) fingers.

Repeat steps 7 to 12 until you are bored or you run out of thread. This plait looks different on different faces.

A 6 strand (3 loop) fingerloop braid made with one blue loop, one white loop, and one half-blue half-white loop.

Credits: with thanks to Jennifer Bray.