Kumihimo

Last week at our High Fiber Diet meeting Karen Miller was quietly doing some kind of handwork involving a round plastic thingy and bobbins of some kind of cord or thread. Finally curiosity got the best of Gerrie and she said, "I want to know what Karen is doing over there!" Karen explained that she was making cord, using a Japanese method called Kumihimo. She passed around the disk and some of the cords she has made and I was very intrigued. When I got home I got on the internet and found a place where I could order a kit. It arrived this week and I have been working with it. As Karen said, it is really mindless work, but keeps your hands busy and produces some nice cording fairly quickly.


Here are the cords I have made:

The one on the left is made from cotton yarn that was included in the kit for practice. The one on the right was made with crochet thread—way too thin. The one in the middle is made with two colors of #5 perle cotton. It would be a nice weight for a necklace. I have been working with whatever I have around the house, but I want to go out and see what kind of thread/yarn/cord I can find to try out.

Why do I need another crafty pursuit? When I showed it to Ray he seemed a little perplexed. "Can't you, uh, buy cord?" Well, of course, but that's not the point. I used to always have some kind of handwork to do as I relaxed, but not so much anymore. For the last two evenings, after hard work and painting at the new house, I have collapsed in front of the TV and made cords while we watched a movie. And here's the amazing thing about keeping one's hands busy—I didn't fall asleep! I usually miss the middle of movies we watch on dvd because I see the beginning, fall asleep, then wake up for the last few minutes of the movie. It's an old fogey thing, and very annoying.

I explained all this to Ray and he said, "Good deal—and we can always use rope." Whatever.