I suppose I have been busy enough. This is about two weeks’ output. I spent the most time on the Burgundy: four yards of, I’m sure there’s a term specific to Japanese braiding, but I’m calling it
warp (as in weaving) for the time being. This here is a spiral braid. The raised edge is more raised in some places than in others, but it looks well enough. I like the flashy coloring, but have absolutely nothing to wear this with. I will put findings on it and try to sell it. And are the DOGE actually turfing people who do nothing all day? Senator Mitch McConnell pays the rent on six local offices in the State of Kentucky. Do you know there are … just … five million people in the State of Kentucky. That would be three million fewer than live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Senators Padilla and Adam Schiff … well, actually, these two bozos will not tell me how many offices they pay rent on in the state, so there is that argument shot all to hell.

This is my first attempt as what’s called a hollow core braid, called such by a YouTuber called Prumihimo. Her name is, of course, Prudence. I tell myself to settle down. I tell myself it’s early days yet. Trump has yet to impose any of his oft threatened tariffs for a solid week. It will want six months to manifest any effect. And the Canadians have, God Bless Them, retaliated. Who the fuck knows what the next year of this idiocy will manifest? But I have stocked in … well … actually .. I could stock in, yet, a bit more cording. But not this 3mm rattail. First, you never really know what it looks like, colorwise, until it shows up, and for all of Amazon’s ubiquity, you’d be surprised how little selection there is. Second, it is a really lumpy effect. I mean, it will work round a neck. I have a pendant in mind, an Art-Deco Cat Broach. And I have ordered, not quite high end, findings that will work. I will get it done.

This is also a Prumihimo braid. Heaven knows what the Japanese term for the braid is.

I am intrigued. I’ve been through my Kimihimo books. None of the “English” books I have even attempt to acknowledge Japanese sources.

But I love the green and gray … lime green and gray. Findings … well, elegant findings for a flat braid are harder to come by … on Amazon, anyway.

But I might take bits and bobs of broken things and make them into some other pretty thing with which some other person might console themselves.

Those in our country who take raw material and make it into something of industrial usefulness are well and truly up shit creek.

Mine and theirs are similar endeavors, but The Donald understands neither of them.

This is my first attempt at what is called the Mitake braid. But, as the Berkeley Public Library was of no use to me, I went to YouTube. And there I was instructed … apparently … wrongly. I mean, actually, do I know? And, I have to say, my photo does not show the crookedness of the braid. Well, maybe it does. Look at the section closest to my hand. The cords cross four times. Look at the third cross from the left … how short it is. The cord is essentially two braids woven together. The left braid is raised, and the right braid … owing to that third short crossing … is receded. I did spend some time trying to figure out how to tug the cords so this should not be so. No luck.

So, people, how will we deal with this Trumpian inconsistency. Astoundingly, The Donald, the most materialistic SOB ever to walk the earth, requires that we embrace just the opposite. So, what the fuck?