Lilly's Braid

This is a pretty easy and great looking rope braid that will greatly enhance any simple bag or tote or bag that you want to embellish. It is a 6-strand braid which, to start with, I recommend that you make with ropes of different colors so that you can easily follow what you do until you get it down pat and can make it with ropes of the same color against, say, a contrasting ground or a lighter or darker ground.

To start, make your ropes as explained in previous tutorials.
Make 6 ropes of co different colors twice as long as the size of your tote or bag. If possible, leave them unfinished at the bottom part of them, just in case you need to enlarge them or to shorten them when you are done braiding.
This is NOT an exact science! Pin your ropes at the top of the bag as usual, leaving a little excess which you will bed over the edge inwardly
and will be sewing to the inside of the bag, to be covered by the lining.
Think of your ropes as pairs. You have 3 pairs.
To make the braid proceed as follows:

1. Take the left rope of each pair and place it over the rope on its right side.

2. Skip the two outer ropes and working only with the ropes in the middle, take the right rope of each of the middle pairs and pass it over the left rope of each pair. (Look at the photos)






















3. From here on you just repeat the first two steps over and over until you have the right length of rope for your project. Pin the edges down and sew all around with matching yarn.


You can make the braid tighter or you can open it up a bit more so that the background of the tote or bag can be seen behind it.





































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