In this article, I made a braiding board out of a piece of coconut shell.

In the next few pages, I'll demonstrate how it can be used to produce a variety of decorative and useful braided cords and ribbons.

The Braiding Board

Here's a shot of the coconut shell braiding board in action - making simple, flat braid.

Of course, there's no particular reason why it has to be made out of coconut shell...

Here's one I made a few years ago out of a piece of hardwood reclaimed from an old pallet - alongside a selection of different types of braid it can be used to make.

But even if you don't have any woodworking tools or skills, you can still try this craft - just make your own braiding board out of a rectangle of stiff cardboard - cut slits into it with scissors and it will work just as well.

Anatomy Of The Atomic Shrimp Braiding Board

The braiding board has a total of 24 edge slots to accommodate threads being woven or braided - nine slots along the top (which will be referred to throughout this instruction guide as T1-T9), nine along the bottom (B1-B9) and three each on the right and left ends (L1-L3 and R1-R3).

You don't have to make yours exactly the same as this, but if you're going to start off following the instructions on the next few pages, it will help if you do use the same design.

The braided work is formed through the letterbox shaped slot in the middle of the board - it will emerge through the bottom of this slot as work progresses.

The small circular hole may be used to thread the board on a hanging loop for storage, but its primary purpose is to identify the left side of the board - some of the designs that follow will rely on being able to tell that you're working from one specific side toward the other - without some mark identifying one side, it would be possible to accidentally flip the board around and lose track of what should happen next.

Techniques

Creating braids using this board actually requires only one technique - picking up a thread out of one slot and placing it in a different one. Simple - the only slightly difficult bit is repeating that action over and over upon the right threads in the right order.

Moves

So this most basic operation will be called a move - and will be described in the form: 'T8 to B9' - meaning: take the thread from slot T8 (i.e. the 8th slot along the top of the board) and deposit it in slot B9 (the 9th slot along the bottom of the board).

Move Groups

To (hopefully) simplify the instructions, each of these moves will be presented as part of a set, which I'll call a move group

A simple move group might consist of the instructions:
R1 to B1
R3 to T1
L1 to R3
L3 to R1
T1 to L1
B1 to L3

So a move group is just a list of moves - and the one above results in the threads at each end of the board being swapped over with each other.

Grouping them in this makes it easier to see the repeating patterns that are fundamental to this style of braiding - don't worry if that all sounds a bit complicated - it will make much more sense when you start doing it...

On the next page, we'll take a quick look at how to set up the braiding board, and how to finish at the end of making a braid.