Braiding Cord

      Cord is playing a big part in the stuff I'm making for my shop this year. i have always been into things made with string, yarn, rope whatever.  you will be surprised how many ways you can use a string or a rope. My Grandpa and i would get the old hard rawhide lariat and swing it around and rope a post.  it was a past time but it taught me how to catch a runaway pig and and a loose horse.  rope was a neccasity at the pueblo, still is.

Anyway last year when i opened my new shop at the pueblo i started making a waxed braid for the Amulets.  it was crazy, people were waiting in line for their handmade four-strand or six-strand cord for the different amulets they bought. So Nelson and i taught Aspen and Kona how to braid on the braiding spool, up and over, cross and then under.  my girls became braiding fiends.

Hand Braider

I knew that it was going to be too much for us to keep up with the demand so Nelson started doing some research online and he found this machine that some guy had in his garage in Iowa or someplace like that, (its always some guy in the mid-west who has one in his garage). This man at one time had about a hundred or so of these machines making shoe laces and fishing line for some Japanese fishing company. Long story short, now one of these machines lives at the pueblo learning Tiwa from my mom and spinning a weave for the Amulets and all the different uses that Mirabal Native Gifts has in mind.

My mom running the cord braiding machine

Boxes of corded amulets

Bracelets

Ocarinas hung on cord

 The Cord, Sculptures, Amulets and the new art work is an on-going process. Not all is on the Mirabal website at the moment so check in from time to time.  Mirabal.com