Do you remember the time that you made keychains with scoubidou strings? Ten years ago it became very popular again, during the summer of 2004 it was suddenly a trend, bringing scoubidou with you on holiday. Sitting in the back of the car, hours driving to the holiday destination. It was oké because we had something to do: scoubidou!

The simplest things you can make are just straight / twisted keyrings. The image of above is a bit more difficult. I found some unused strings because I  saved them for a decade. And now I’m beginning again, something to do when I’m watching on my own the news or an episode of a series. I also discovered something about Japanese craft with strings and certain knots and patters, later I will write about that and how my practice is going.

Fact: there is even now a Scoubidou app developed by Pocket Simulations (0,99 cents in the App Store)

But scoubidou isn’t just a rage, it is really a long-term trend with comes and goes. I digged into some history of this craftwork and how it developed. That it’s history is originated in France was me already told ten years ago when I started with scoubidou – on holiday. But now I know more and I’ll explain.
In the late 1950’s this fad (better known in NL as rage / hype) is named after a song of the French singer Sacha Distel. It is a knotting craft and became nearly half a century later very popular in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and other western European countries. The craft knows some different kinds of stitches: squares, spirals, twists, doubles, singles or you can even make some little objects with it! I made mostly keychains from small to thick. The strings are plasticised PVC tubes and therefore good for modeling with the different kind of knots.

Last year in 2014 there was also this sort of trend called ‘looming’ making braid bands or friendship bands with little loom. Also know as Rainbow Loom, this product is at the moment only sold in 16 countries but was last year in the United States named as the ‘Toy of the Year 2014’.

Do you have Scoubidou or Rainbow Loom? And what do or did you made with it?