Meet the Braider

Please go to the new website, and change your links to:

www.dreamweaverbraiding.com!

This site will be shut down once I see that most of the outside links to this page have been changed.

It seems vaguely strange to me that as many people as have should come to my site and have no idea who I am, what I look like, or even to know what the faces of my model or photographer look like.  Thus, more pictures.

Mary Bertke, braider (as braided by Karen Ribble)	Mary with Amanda, instruction model
	Chris, the wonderful man responsible for most of the pictures on this site.  That's right, the little one.  Ok, no, I mean the proud uncle.

I've been braiding hair about as long as I had long hair.  I first learned to French and Dutch braid in high school when I had insomnia.  I got bored, didn't care what the resulting braid looked like, and it gave me something to do since I was awake anyway.  I highly recommend the method of learning by attempting braids at times when people aren't going to see you immediately afterwards.

Many of the braid variations I describe on these pages I learned from Karen Ribble, a professional braider who has booths at the Ohio Renaissance Festival and Scarborough Faire (another Ren Faire) in Texas.  She has been braiding hair for as long as I've been alive and is a wonderful woman.  If you're in the area, go to the festival and patronize her booth!  She has a hair braiding video in which you can watch someone creating some of the hair braids described in these pages.  She also has some books - she has started a series that focuses on braiding your own hair, rather than someone else's.