Traditional kumists like silk because its supreme smoothness highlights the beauty of the braid structure and pattern; and if you look closely at this braid, made of perle cotton and gudebrod (stringing) silk, you can see fuzzies, even though it's much smoother than yarn.

However, it can't compare to all silk.

This is an early effort at forcing patterns from ombres. It didn't work, and I started to appreciate the complexities of the problem. Like many of these braids it's a 16 strand keriko no himo (simple twill weave).

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