Easy No-Knit Yarn Cowl

I saw a tutorial for another cute cowl and thought I'd give it a whirl. This one is for a friend whose birthday we're celebrating tomorrow. It's five or six "braids" of yarn, each braid being made up of 3 sets of 8 strands of yarn, 40 inches long, then braided. Here's my end result:

The full tutorial is here. Please go take a quick look at her pretty blue cowl, then come right back, okay?

I ran into a bit of trouble with my first attempt, which resulted in this:

My wrapped section is about
three times what it should be.

Okay, I have more yarn. And my friend probably likes red better, anyway. I didn't see a way to end up with the desired result following the instructions, so I modified it a bit.

Instead of cutting 120 or 148 40-inch long strands of yarn, then combining them into groups of 8 strands, then each 8-strand each of which becomes one -- oh I can't do this math again.

Anyway, I decided to make one very long braid, then wind it around five times. Each strand started out about 15 feet long. Go ahead, laugh at me; think about braiding someone's hair that is so long that you are in different rooms for the last third. Oh and think about when you're braiding something really long, the "unbraided" sections are, in fact, braiding themselves. So you have to -- at the same time that you're pinching the braid, unbraid the lower portion. Ay-yi-yi.

Here are my 3 sets of 8 strands of yarn:

And a close up of one:

And because I knew that the instruction in the original tutorial, to tape the strands down to your work surface, would not hold for me, I knotted the ends of each strand and used binder clips:

And clipped them tightly:

And then I hung the binder clip on a pegboard clip:

I then started braiding. And braiding. And braiding. Then I wrapped it around five times, machine-stitched the braids together, used a bit of red duct tape to cover the ends, and wrapped yarn around the duct tape. The result:

I think she'll like it. I'm going to make one for myself, but it will be when I have a helper, someone who can unbraid the lower ever-getting-more-tangled part while I'm braiding away.

Is it worth your time to see someone's real-life experience following a tutorial? What do you like about it?

Oh, and is anyone interested in some dark orange (official color name Paprika) braids? And the rest of the ball of yarn, too. It's Paton's worsted weight wool. For a doll? Or a costume? I'll give them to the first person to request them in the Comments.

Blessings and peace...