The Armour Archive

... to annoy me.

These pictures are from one of my guys, Koha. He was the guinea pig for The Raito Method a few years ago. Now the guy is braiding his own lacing.

As for the annoyance, he chooses color schemes based on my blood pressure.

How many times have you heard someone say that they're going to do their Japanese armour in a completely period manner, including lacquer, and even weaving their own braid using kumihimo?

(Completely ignorant of what urushi really is, or that, while you can use a dai to braid odoshi and mimi-ito, it probably wasn't the method used. And usually I try to use facts to show a more reasonable path.)

Anyway, I just want you to see what can be done. The sode in the pictures are bucket plastic.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23342201@N05/

Is all of the lace made by him, or just the multi-colored?

Oh, dear God, the colors!

AAIIIEEEE!


Effingham

is he going to make plaid hakama?

raito wrote:How many times have you heard someone say that they're going to do their Japanese armour in a completely period manner, including lacquer, and even weaving their own braid using kumihimo?

Never.

The colors look bad to me and I know squat about Japanese Armour.

Pad

Now that he's got the sequence and consistency down, he can do mimi ito in the correct colours.

*I* have too much on my plate to do my own weaving. I've done a little and that is good work even if the colours ARE hideous.

Yes, the colors are hideous -- that's to annoy me, mostly. He also has a bit of color-blindness (probably saved his vision working on this stuff )

No, he didn't do all the lacing, just the multicolored part. The rest is shoelace.

And I'm trying to get him to do me some in the right colors.

Mykaru wrote:...that is good work even if the colours ARE hideous.

High praise indeed, on both accounts.

losthelm wrote:is he going to make plaid hakama?

Sir Raito, didn't you once mention plaid was period? muahahahahaha

Effingham wrote:Oh, dear God, the colors!....

Did I not warn you in the tousando post, Sunglasses were to be worn when looking at the pictures? *passes blame unto Sir Raito for omitting that warning*

Padrig wrote:The colors look bad to me ...

Perhaps they will look better when they compliment the other garments that go under the armor... then again perhaps not

Thankyou all for the interest in my lacing project. The Hand-Strap method (Kute-Uchi) seems to work well for producing functional lacing. I am hopeful that one day I might find fellow enthusiasts with whom to attempt the 2-person and 4-person versions (these will create the single or double faced kikko 'tortoise shell' pattern that I love most.)

Where can someone find information on historical laces and the methods used to make them?

Now this is one of those things I just don't get in the SCA. I mean I can brely get myself to put in the effort to do something right yet you have people like this who will put in the time to do something they KNOW is wrong.

Although I can kind of understand it if the purpose is to annoy Raito.

I have been given to understand that bright colors mixed in the same piece is correct for Japanese armour. Is what this person doing inaccurate or just anoying?

Koha wrote:

losthelm wrote:is he going to make plaid hakama?

Sir Raito, didn't you once mention plaid was period? muahahahahaha

Effingham wrote:Oh, dear God, the colors!....

Did I not warn you in the tousando post, Sunglasses were to be worn when looking at the pictures? *passes blame unto Sir Raito for omitting that warning*

Yes, and I said that any monkey can warp and weft in different colors, so that woven stripes and plaids are low class. And you can't blame me for anything that happens on a board I do not post to.

Ceddie,

Yes, bright colors and combinations of bright colors are used. But you can't just use any color or combination of colors. For mimi-ito (edge lacing) it's inaccurate, not just annoying. I'm pretty sure that lacing it through the sode was an experiment (right, Koha?) to see how the braid fits. Originally, Koha chose the colors that he would be able to see, partly to see what the pattern looked like for a given starting arrangement. I'm pretty sure that he'll be replacing it before butt-wrap season.

(I'll also point out that his armour hasn't been worn for combat, and so hasn't offended any sensibilities on the field. And it better not.)

And Koha, you aren't to speak to Magnus under any circumstances. It'll just give him ideas.

Ceddie wrote:I have been given to understand that bright colors mixed in the same piece is correct for Japanese armour. Is what this person doing inaccurate or just anoying?

There are tons of colors and variations for armor clothing and lacings (ito), however early on certain patterns of weave with certain colors were used for specific bits of lacing, pretty much regardless of the other color combinations. Not quite how it became so ridgid, but it caught on and was the Japanese asthetic.

So while your armor is black lacquer and predominantly laced in bright green, with edge lacing picked out in a the fairly default white/black/blue/green/red, with the end crossing braids picked out in red lacquer.

Also as a side note, I love that pattern (so much so that I am working on ito for my tachi in it... but 2 colors (indigo and violet) or maybe 3 so it has a nice psuedo irradecent effect to offset the iron furniture, or I might go with a dark gold/brown combo to match an extant piece.) but I do not think that pattern is quite appropriate for historical mimi-ito, at least I have not found an extant piece which uses that pattern. (I usualy do mine on a takadai)

-Takeda

Chris G. wrote:Where can someone find information on historical laces and the methods used to make them?

Masako Kinoshita Has some wonderful information on this topic in the L-M BRIC articles located here: ILLUSTRATTED INSTRUCTION -- KUTE-UCHI Basic Procedures

An advanced 'how-to' article can be found at: L-M BRIC News No. 7 Illustrated Instruction Series:Kute-uchi

Other articles found at the L-M BRIC News homepage; L-M BRIC News , have interesting information on Loop Manipulation braiding from around the world.

I have also found Jacqui Carey's Samurai Undressed (pg.65-69) to be useful as an overview and for the illustration of how many loops to allocate to each hand for producing an 8-ridge twill lacing braid via Kute-uchi (handloop braiding.)

Okay, so all his foes will suffer hearing loss... Pretty wicked.

TakedaSanjuichiro wrote:There are tons of colors and variations for armor clothing and lacings (ito), however early on certain patterns of weave with certain colors were used for specific bits of lacing, pretty much regardless of the other color combinations. Not quite how it became so ridgid, but it caught on and was the Japanese asthetic.

Yup.

So while your armor is black lacquer and predominantly laced in bright green, with edge lacing picked out in a the fairly default white/black/blue/green/red, with the end crossing braids picked out in red lacquer.

I've seen more white/black/red/yellow/green, and I've seen more armour with laced hishinui than lacquered (though Arms and Amrour of the Samurai shows mostly lacquered hishinui).

I see mostly mimi-ito in the pattern Koha's using (with better colors), followed by kikko (tortoise-shell). I've only ever saw 'W' a couple times (that's the stuff you wanted a pattern for, right?)

My daughter loved the colors of the braids! ( she's only 6, what does she know? LOL)

When I looked at the close ups of the braid, it reminded me of the friendship braclets we used to make when I followed the Grateful dead!

Doe wrote:My daughter loved the colors of the braids! ( she's only 6, what does she know? LOL)

When I looked at the close ups of the braid, it reminded me of the friendship braclets we used to make when I followed the Grateful dead!

Some of my earlier attempts at learning Kute-Uchi have gone to just this sort of use. My daughters (now 6 and 10) have gotten several cast-offs over the last 3 years. They predominantly use them for bracelets and cat-toys.

For the most part, each braid is a wonderful replica of a shoelace. The largest difference when compared to a modern lace, is that it takes about 3 hours to produce a 24 inch length by hand. Still, I have always intended to make the girls funky shoelaces for grins, but they keep wanting Merrels and velcro-shoes (subconciously they might fear what laces Dad would make for them, OR they just like easy to wear shoes).

Koha,

Thank you for the information. I think I will try my hand at it over the next week or so.

raito wrote:And Koha, you aren't to speak to Magnus under any circumstances. It'll just give him ideas.

Raito,

I'm hurt that you think I need anyone to give me ideas on how to be loud.

from everyone's reaction, I am thankful to be colorblind myself

raito wrote:I see mostly mimi-ito in the pattern Koha's using (with better colors), followed by kikko (tortoise-shell). I've only ever saw 'W' a couple times (that's the stuff you wanted a pattern for, right?)

To all I appologize, Koha's pattern is a period pattern for mimi-ito... the weird color combination realy threw me... It is a fairly basic (common) pattern and the outcome only depends on the number of colors used. (the hard part is figuring out the inital layout for those number of colors)

Yeah, I am looking for the 3 and 4 color double layer W braid... really only useful if you are trying to do pre Gempei... But I love the color/pattern. I've been looking over what ya sent, and it is either not exactly what I am looking for, or my fumble fingers have mucked it up. (which is highly likely)

-Takeda