New Items

I'm finally starting a list of the "new" items on the page, which can be used as a historical document.  Sorry, all the past year's updates aren't recorded anywhere.

7/2/05  Sorry to anyone who made a donation and didn't get a thank-you email.  I just discovered the spam filter was catching the notifications.  I thanked people back to May or April, but after a certain point those messages are automatically deleted, and so I would have missed any older than what's there.

In other news, I *did* take pictures for more self-braiding instructions - I just haven't resized them or written instructions for them yet.  Maybe this weekend I'll make the time for it.

6/3/05  Meddled some with the Songs page.  Am thinking of posting a page of "fun things", links to things that tickled me.  It would be something that I could put up even when I don't have time to add new braids.  Good news, too, on that front: I have today off, I just called a friend and she's willing to come take the pictures for a new set of self-braiding instructions.

1/18/05  It would seem I've been a bit lazy.  I've finally posted some new examples which I braided in August.  I also switched which pictures get to represent the Example categories. 

I'll be in Britain Feb 3-17.  If you'd like to meet, drop me an email.  I'm looking for suggestions of places to go as well as offers of places to stay.

6/2  I've discovered that my web provider changed the authentication requirements for their email server.  Thus, I've been receiving mail from the website, but any mail I've sent from it since the change hasn't actually been sent, and I didn't receive notification that it didn't get sent.  I need to buy a new version of Eudora Pro; the 4.2 doesn't have the necessary authentication capability.  If you've emailed me and I haven't replied, re-send.  Once I get a new copy of Eudora I'll be doing a re-send, but I don't know how long ago they made the change.

2/5/04  Added some new songs.  Enjoy!

1/04   Added text-only instructions for the Arwen Braid that appears only in the documentaries for TTT.  I think it's what she wore when she was in Helm's Deep.

12/17  Sad news for Johnny Cunningham fans.  He died of a heart attack on Monday night.  He was only 46.  Remembrances may be sent via http://www.johnnycunningham.com/news.html.

Why is Johnny even being mentioned here, since this is a braiding website?  Well, for one because he was my favorite fiddler, and I was hoping to hear him live again - it's been just over 10 years since last I heard him play.  There is a direct braiding connection, however: he's the first person on whom I ever attempted a braid consisting of more than three strands.

12/16  Added a picture of the TTT Arwen braid, which I'm not sure actually ever appears in the movie, since Arwen was edited out of Helm's Deep.  However, thanks to the commentary, we have it in glorious detail, and I've reproduced it.  It's a French perfect classic with the hair in back braided into 7 3-strands, and then all of the braids (including the two from the classic) are braided into a 9-strand.

And now - it's off to the midnight showing of return of the king with me!

11/23  I do not do cornrows, but here's someone who does!  http//cornrows.co.uk/cornrowslinks.html.  Go talk to her!

10/19  Please note that Cornrows are simply Dutch braids done on hair parted in 1"-2" wide rows.  Please do not ask me for further instructions on cornrows, as I find them tedious and will never master the finer points well enough to be comfortable making instructions specifically for them.

10/15  I have finally added photos to to poem Screag an Iolair, which I've been meaning to do since I put it up.  

10/8  I've added a new picture to Odd Images, as well as new example pictures to Crowns, Combos, and Variations.  Look towards the bottom for the new examples.

9/19  I've added many more example pictures, though not to the technique pages.  The only example pages I DIDN'T add to were Herringbones, Ribbons and Variations.  I'll need to reclassify soon - there are too many pictures per page.  I also linked a couple of silly pictures off of the Musings page.  Enjoy!

9/16  Email was not working for a week.  We manually cleared out the mailbox and messages are again downloading.  Don't know why it hadn't worked for awhile.  If you sent something and it bounced, please re-send.  I'll get it this time!

8/20  Between yesterday and today alone I have received well over 100 email viruses.  If you email me about the website, don't use the subject lines: Thank you, Details, My details, Approved, Your application, Wicked screensaver, That movie, etc.  I often do get website emails with just "Thank you" in the subject line - for right now, those will be deleted unread.  I'm getting so many in a batch that I'm not bothering to count the number of times my virus software pops up, and simply delete the emails with the subject lines that are being commonly used with viruses.

7/26/03  I have added a snail mail address to the Donations page for those of you who want to donate but don't have a credit card or don't want to use PayPal.

7/14  For the first time in my life I've written a convention report, this one for Weekend in Sherwood.  This is essentially the full story of "What I did last weekend".  There will be more pictures included eventually.

SELF DEFENSE:  IMPACT Safety Group is having a Community Celebration on July 27 in Columbus, Ohio.  This is essentially a graduation, a demonstration of the skills gained by the people who have just completed the class.  It's a great opportunity to see IMPACT techniques in action and talk to people who have already taken the course.  If you are in the area, I highly recommend you come to the graduation, which is free to attend.  This is a wonderful program, and the graduation can be an incredibly moving experience.

6/28  Long hair is prettier!  I found this fine article on Yahoo News.

6/12  I've added two new instruction pages - French braiding on yourself and one of Eowyn's hairstyles.  If you have links to certain pages, you'll also discover (much to your dismay and disgust) that I've renamed some pages to be kinder to certain kinds of servers.  Sorry for the inconvenience!

5/30  I've added alternate instructions for the 5-strand braid.  Similar to the alternate French and Dutch instructions, these explain where the strands should go rather than what the hands do to get them there.

5/11  Fun news!  I make a cameo appearance on pgs. 329-331 of Tanya Huff's latest novel, Long Hot Summoning.  This is what happens when one happens to be handy to jump start an author's truck at the end of a science fiction convention.

5/4  Public Service Message:  It is summer.  Remember to watch for bicyclers and pedestrians before turning right on red.  Also, it's a good idea to keep your radio down to a level that you can hear said bicyclers or pedestrians shouting at you when you're about to hit them.  </public service message>

4/30  Besides adding a hairpiece example, I also added a picture to the Aikido haiku.  This was from my first couple years of Aikido, since I'm not wearing a hakama.

4/28  Added a couple new example pictures, one in crowns, one in combos.  There are various little changes, but I'll leave those for you to find.  

Seeking an Opinion:  I'm thinking of making braided hair pieces, targeting the bellydancer market specifically.  It would be braids connected to a hair band or one of those brown plastic headband things.  Some of the braids would have ribbon, some beaded, some plain.  Email me if you're interested - I want to try to gauge the interest before I jump into making them.  I just put up the first example.  There will be more later, as I experiment.

4/19  Added examples of other things you can do with braiding techniques  - link is at the bottom of the pertinent instructions.  Same pictures as in the regular example pages, just grouped differently.

4/18  Added some links to Recommended Links and Craft Links.  Also added simplified Dutch braid instructions, similar to the way I've had the French braid instructions.  Caryn (Kyrae) of Wamogo High School told me to.  So there.

I also added a list (two, really) of recommended books and authors.  I love to read, and these are some of my favorites.  They're not organized by anything in particular.  I left off Tolkien, since everyone is probably reading his works right now anyway.  ;-)

4/17  I'm oh-so-proud - I made an archery glove and quiver myself.  I haven't written instructions for it yet, but I have pictures of the finished product..

3/31 I added some new example pictures.  They're on the Classics, Variations, and Other pages.  This includes the Arwen braid.  Don't inspect specific instructions soon.  Really, it's just three herringbones.  Yes, I will go see TTT for the third time one of these days so I can pay attention to Eowyn in the dream sequence.

I also clarified the links page slightly.

2/24  With the recent rise in hit rate, I've gotten an influx of mail - both good, reasonable mail to which I'm happy to respond, as well as hate mail.  If you're in a bad mood and feel like sending me hate mail to ruin my day as well as yours, please read this.

2/21  I discovered the Paypal link in the footer wasn't working, and corrected it.  I'm still working on the voiceover of the #%@!@!!! mpeg of the Legolas braid.  Sometime in the next week I should break down and do a text and pictures version of the instructions.  Since I'll soon be the sole occupant of my computer again soon, there should be more site improvements upcoming.

Thanks again to those who have donated, and please think about donating if you haven't.  I just paid to keep the URL for the next five years, which was $100, and I pay a little over $100/year for web space.  I got almost enough to cover last year.  Since I am currently unemployed (ah, the life of a contract worker), it would be nice to have people who enjoy the site help to support it.  Thanks!

1/6/03  I added a page with some VERY poor-quality mp3s of some of my songs, including two songs I started writing in November, finished late December.

12/17  Picky, picky.  So it's not enough that I've added a history of web updates, but you want a link to it, too?  Sheesh.  I've finally restructured the instructions page and added a couple explanatory terms to the terminology page.

12/15 Today I've created a New Items page - basically, it will be a record of everything that has been in this red box.  Real news:

I've added some information and a link to a Robin of Sherwood convention happening near Detroit in July.  Find it on the Robin Links page!

Speaking of which, you may notice that there's a...bit of a difference with the links pages.  Sorry for those of you who had bookmarks to specific pages.

11/11  Hmm....I noticed while in Boston that my most recent update did some weird things to my webpage.  Don't know why, it just messed up the shared borders.

11/7 I've added wav files to some of my songs.  This is a bad time to do so, since I'm just getting over a bad cold and haven't rehearsed some of them in years.  No, this isn't an Irish "oh, I have a cold, ask me to sing anyway".  This is me almost losing my voice for a few days.  However, people who want to know what the melodies sound like can hear them now.  Since Windows recorder only does 60 seconds at a time without acrobatics, a lot of them are only one verse and a refrain.

10/23  I've mucked about with the site a bit.  Changed a few page borders, navigation bars, etc.  Most importantly, I'm finally putting in the second set of French braid instructions, to see which people liked better.  I'd been hoping to get feedback on whether they were helpful, and never did.  Opinions on which is more helpful would be interesting to me.  

I also added a new page showing different braids on my hair, not necessarily braided by me.  It is deliberately buried.  Once I get around to adding more braids done myself as an example of what can be done on one's own hair, I may make it more accessible.  Until then, it's purely a vanity page.