It’s helpful to have a spouse who’s willing to show me how to use her tools, and do some of the cutting that involves less trepidation with really fast-moving sharp blades, and give me some of her scrap wood pieces. Frankly, I’m still trying to get past an inherent fear of power tools and splinters.

Woodworking: I had a little help with this one. it took me about a month and a half of TV-time and other moments of idle sitting time to braid about 8 feet. As the cord got longer, the twist tie helped bundle it up and out of the way of the dangling threads. I used an 8-thread pattern for a lattice design using three colors. Kumihimo: For the kumihimo, I wrapped the skeins of floss onto eight floss cards, tied the ends in a knot and attached the keychain to the knot as a weight (to help with the tension during the braiding process).

small keychain, twist tie, floss cards, scissors (for the kumihimo).

8 skeins of cotton embroidery floss in black, white, and red.

1/4 yard of white silk for the flag ties.

The self-standing version is a bit more of a “creative anachronism”, a cross between the sashimono and a much larger nobori flag, which could be more rectangular but which was likely to be held by one or more soldiers into battle.

My lovely spouse, who acquiesced to model the sashimono for this photo.

How to make a sashimono