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I love using a variety of looms and techniques in a piece. This necklace started on a loom, moved to a marudai, and was then embellished with needle and thread beads.
Techniques:
Ruffled mid-section is huck lace in the dogwood pattern. 30″ of warp was left empty on the loom, the mid-section was woven leaving 30″ of empty warp after. Middle threads in the handwoven section were pulled to create the ruffle. The warp was then transferred to a marudai, threads distributed to tama and the kumihimo braid on one side created. When finished, this was removed from the marudai, flipped to the other side where a second braid was created (color distribution on the tama different). Beads were created using needle and thread in a peyote stitch. These both serve as embellishment and to cover the transitions between braid and cloth and between the two braid ends.
Dimensions:
stand: 4″ x 7″ x 9″; necklace 30″
Materials:
16/2 bamboo, beads
Loom:
16 shaft Ashford table loom (only 8 shafts used); marudai with 16 tama
Kathy Forsythe
Handweaving I started my love affair with fiber over 50 years ago as a college undergraduate studying Peruvian culture. My main tools over the years have been 4-, 8-, and 16 shaft jack looms. My current tool of choice is an Ashford 16-shaft table loom.
Braiding Inspired by a presentation at a guild meeting, I began kumihimo braiding in 2009 on the Marudai. Makiko Tada and Jacqui Carey are my main inspirations. I’ve been a member of the American Kumihimo Society since its founding in 2016. I am also a member of the Complex Weavers study group on kumihimo.
Beading When I began selling braided jewelry, my third obsession began – needle and thread beading using techniques such as peyote stitch to create pendants. One of my prime beading inspirations is Kate McKinnon’s Contemporary Geometric Beadwork.
My current happy place is combining all three of these processes into a single piece, as showcased in the Ruffles and Ridges necklace in Complexity 2026. Future explorations will also involve pushing braiding boundaries using the octo plate.
