Plaited Leather Woggle

Most Scouts and Guides will be familiar with the image of the plaited leather woggle*, but few will have made one.

Quite a few younglings have unravelled a plaited woggle, only to be unable to reverse their fiddling.

Unfortunately, the few instructions available online are unclear; poorly written text with poor-quality scans of poor-quality photocopies.

I have spent time going through such resources as there are, and put together this;

How to fix your unravelled woggle, or how to plait one for the first time...

If the step-by-step doesn't do it for you, try the video version in the final step.

*For those of you who don't know, a woggle holds your neckerchief in place - some branches of Scouting call them sliders (neckerchief slider, scarf slider etc).

Step 1: Cutting a Woggle

If you're making a woggle from scratch, you need to cut some leather (or other, similar material).

I cut mine with a laser, but that absolutely stinks. You can do just as well with a sharp knife or a pair of decent scissors.

The woggle is a single piece of leather, with two slots cut into it. I found that sensible dimensions were 120x30mm for the leather, and 100mm long for the cuts (with 10mm uncut at each end). See the various versions attached to this step.

Taking advantage of the laser, I added a row of holes for sewing ends together later.

If you’re making a woggle from scratch, you have two options:

1). Use a laser cutter or an online service like Ponoko for laser cutting your leather.

2). You’ll need to obtain and cut some leather (or other, similar material) and use a sharp knife or a pair of decent scissors.

The leather woggle is a single piece of leather, with two slots cut into it. I found that sensible dimensions were 120x30mm for the leather, and 100mm long for the cuts (with 10mm uncut at each end). Taking advantage of the laser, I added a row of holes for sewing ends together later.

If you are using Ponoko you should select 1mm thick x "P1" sized sheet of upholstery leather. It cost me about $25 plus shipping (not so expensive when you realise that I squeezed eight woggles out of that one piece of leather).

If you're cutting your own, see the various versions attached to this step.

Step 2: Weaving 1

Open up the leather by pushing the centre strip backwards, and the outer strips forwards.

Step 3: Weaving 2

Take the bottom of the leather strip, and pass it from left-to-right through the gap you just made.

Step 4: Weaving 3

Look at your strip.

The top should still have the smooth side facing you, but the bottom should have the rough side facing you.

The strand that starts top-left should finish bottom-right ("red" in the diagram).

The strand that starts top-right should finish bottom-left. ("purple")

The centre strip should loop around the left and finish in the centre. ("blue")

Push the "purple" strip to the left.

Push the "blue" strip to the right, behind the "red".

Shuffle the "red" a little to the left.

Step 5: Weaving 4

Take hold of the bottom of the strip, and pass it through the space you made in the previous step, from front to back.

Step 6: Furtle

The plait is, technically, finished. It's just untidy.

Work your way along the strips, twisting and turning them to all face the same way.

As you do, you'll find the whole plait naturally forms into a curve.

Step 7: Finishing

So far, your plait is just a plait.

It doesn't become a woggle (or slider) until you fasten the ends together.

You could glue them, or use small staples, but I added the small holes for a reason; I sewed the ends together.

And, you're done!

If you make (or fix) your own woggle, I'd love to see it in the comments!

Step 8: Video Version