Paleo Crafts

This has been a summer of chaff.

Bits of pith, bark shavings, and plant dust form a drift around my perch as if straw –– and this would not be a stretch, given the bizarre and crabby march of physical aging –– had begun to leak from my seams.

But for once, a phenomenon NOT the byproduct of birthdays and hard mileage! Yay me.

Instead, these little scraps and nubbins of vegetation come as an extension of curiosity.

Perhaps there were a few seasons of Alone, percolating in the back of my mind. That and  finding the niche YouTube channel of Sally Pointer.

Whatever –– why grasp for justification? ​

​If the internet has taught us nothing, it's that there are more random activities to generate human joy than anybody can shake a keyboard at.

It started with a sewing project last spring; inspired by Bernadette Banner, I built an 18th-Century shirt by hand.

A super-floofy outfit item that doesn't quite fit as I had hoped. One cuff is significantly smaller than the other, and there's no attractive way for me to cinch down that amount of fabric.

But I'll try again, because honestly –– the detailing is amazing.  

It's just a hop, skip, and a jump from hand sewing a pirate shirt to creating cordage from plants, right?  A mere matter of, oh, 400 or so centuries into the past. 

In prehistory, plain cordage (aka twine, yarn, two-ply thread) was used for snares, nets, for lashing x to y, and, step by step, into fabric. Many plants –– nettles, willow, basswood, berry brambles, burdock, rhubarb, etc., etc. –– grow stringy fibers known as "bast." 

It's a thing I missed learning as a kid, though I was fascinated by wildcrafting in general. 

Stinging nettle. The queen of the field. Locate by feel.

Basket willow (the chartreuse color is a dead giveaway).

The Would-Be Farm has enough bast-on-the-hoof to keep a schoolbus full of crafty cordsfolk busy until the next Ice Age. 

And so during this summer's regatta roadtrips, I have been spinning straw into gold. Rapunzel and that patient sister with the enchanted swan siblings?  They got nothin' on me. 

Wither went I, along came the bundle of dried plant, a glass of water, and piles of chaff. My technique improved with each ell. 

A sample tangle: thistle, blackberry brambles, basswood bast, green willow, and soft brome.

My sister (an artist, mind you, a person who has spent countless years creating things –– and embracing the pure joy of the creative process) examined my coil of work.  Failing to stifle her mirth, she had to say, "Wow!, Since garden twine is so expensive and hard to come by..."

Call it artesian garden twine.

Or not. Again, why scramble around in search of reasons?

The heart wants what the heart wants.
​
​Today, it wants to make something that's just as cool now as it was when our ancestors were dodging aurochs and doodling on cave walls.

About 500 roadmiles' worth of green willow twine. Rough texture and a heavenly scent.

All those black plastic paint buckets...I knew they'd come in handy.