Beginner Kumihimo

Concept

My first kumihimo! Mr. Sewlock recently made me a marudai and set of tama so that I could begin to learn the very ancient art of weaving Japanese cord (kumihimo) which had been integral to daily life for centuries (and is probably used more than you would expect today).

Materials

• 1 Marudai: Constructed by Mr. Sewlock 

• 12 Tama (weight 100g): 3D Printed by Mr. Sewlock

• Silk Thread: From the Japanese Embroidery Center

• Ribbon: For extending the silk while still attaching it to the tama

• 1 ruler that is long enough to not be frustrating: For measuring silk thread

Resources

• Comprehensive Treatise of Braids - Marudai Braids I by Makiko Tada

Construction

• Measure out all of your silk threads

  • For future projects, I double-checked how many "pulls" of thread I would need per tama (there are 12 sumo per "pull" of thread as I call it so for a tama that needs 40 sumo, you would need a little over 3 "pulls" of thread before you can move on)

  • Note: a "pull" of thread (my terminology...not official terminology) is the collection of threads that make up the spool

• Using the leg of the marudai, tie all of the silk threads together in two spots, 2" (or 5cm) apart at the end of the length of thread.

• Drop the tied end of the silk thread through the hole in the marudai and separate the silk thread across the face into groups that will go onto individual tama.

• Do the following for each tama:

  • Attach the silk extender to the tama (see the video for reference)

  • Attach the grouped silk threads to the silk extender

  • If necessary, wind the thread around the tama before securing the same way the silk extenders were secured to the tama (see the video for reference)

  • Place the tama on the face of the marudai (room providing)

• On the tied end of the silk threads, put a chopstick through the threads but between the two tied points (see the video for reference). Now lower the tama off the edge of the marudai to provide an upward force on the chopstick.

• Prepare the counterweight (see the video for reference)

• Attach the counterweight to the chopstick so that it hangs down. Once all of the tama are hanging off of the edge of the marudai, the counterweight should not be touching the floor. If it is, adjust the weight until it is balanced.

• Weave away!

• When done, finish off in a manner that makes sense to you. I tried many things but in the end, an overhand knot is what works for me.

• Tadaa! The kumihimo is done!

Takeaways

• Thread Extenders: Usually leather cord is used to extend the thread while it is on the tama. This presumably is ideal because leather is not elastic and is also very hard-wearing and easy to remove silk from.

  • I used a 5/8" polyester satin ribbon instead which was a bit wider than is practical.

• The sound of tama clacking together is very soothing

  • The sound of tama hitting the marudai is slightly concerning

• If your counterweight is balanced correctly, you can get an incredibly even cord even with little to no experience which makes it a great beginner-friendly project!

Difficulties

• Having rough hands means that the silk snags ALL the time (your hands can be rough without you thinking that they are)

  • Recommendation: moisturize your hands and buff your nails before handling the silk thread

• Long silk thread has a tendency to catch on EVERYTHING and may break if handled at the fine individual thread level (sadly this happened a lot to me in future projects but wasn't as big of an issue this time around since the length was on the shorter side)

• Cats are not great kumihimo project partners since they would prefer to chew on the thread than let you weave with it.

• If one "pull" of thread pulls out during setup, you don't have to untie all of your thread to put it back, just line it up and tie it to the existing bundle.

• In a future project, I didn't notice that my counterweight was starting to drag and so my cord ended up looking rather uneven. In the future, I would hoist up my counterweight as soon as I noticed it was getting close to the floor.