More of the Busy Week

Last Saturday some friends came for a visit.  We were walking around the backyard, and one of them saw a patch of grapes that hubby and I had missed.  We went out Sunday to pick and got another 8 1/2 pounds of grapes.  I turned some of them into booze, the rest will be more juice for jelly. 

I had actually forgotten about the rest of the grapes.  I just put them on the stove.  Eesh, that would have been bad, all that work molding in the fridge...

I went down to the ditch this week and picked some more cattail leaves.  The ones I'd picked before are all dried and ready to try out some basketweaving.  I suspect that I'm going to enjoy it, so wanted to get more supplies laid in. 

I tied the first ones in bundles and hung them to dry, and that worked pretty well except that the leaves shrunk and the bundles fell apart when I took them off the wall. This time, I took a stout needle and some 1/4" ribbon and strang them together to hang dry.  There weren't really any problems with tying them in bunches, but this will make them easier to handle when they're dry.  Once the bunches fell apart, the leaves were rather cumbersome. 

Basketry is going to have to wait, though, because Halloween is coming up before you know it, and I have to make costumes for the grandkids.  Thing 1 is going to be a velociraptor, Thing 2 wants to be Spongebob, and Thingette wants to be a butterfly.  I've started working on the patterns.  I'm knocking out the butterfly first because it will be easiest.  Spongebob won't be too bad, but the velociraptor is going to be a real challenge. 

I'm really pretty excited about putting these together.  It's going to be fun.  I've really got to get busy, though.  I'm pretty good as a crunch player with this kind of thing, and there's really plenty of time to get these done, but the kid will be driving me crazy if she doesn't see progress.  She's a worrier.

FT

Cattail Update

The bundling and hanging is working pretty well.  When I do this again, I will do smaller bundles - 8 to 10 leaves per bundle.  They're drying up really well, other than that the butt ends in the big bundles were a bit damp.  They're holding their colors pretty well.  They're still a nice green.

I'm going to have to go cut some more cattails.  This looks like it's going to be fun.


FT

Cattail Basket Update - Day 2

They seem to be drying out nicely hanging in bundles in the work room.  I'll need to unbundle and rebundle them so that the ends of the leaves will dry out.  I won't be using the very bottoms of the leaves so I'm not too concerned with aesthetics there, but I don't want them to start getting moldy.  There is some goo that looks very like aloe vera gel at the base of the leaves, and I probably should have wiped that off before hanging them up. 

If they seem like they're not drying well, I think I'll take a big needle and some strong thread and string them together.  I can hang them back over the pegs in the work room and spread them out a bit.


In case you're wondering, I won't be posting an update on the cattails every day.  I'll only post when I think there's something interesting to share.  I don't expect that to happen too often in the next few weeks, until the actual basket making starts.



FT

Cattail Basket

We collected some cattail leaves today.  I've got them hanging from pegs in the store room.  They should dry out in a few weeks and I'll be able to try making a basket.  This isn't the way that the instructions I've found suggest that it be done, and I will probably find that I would have been better off making a frame and laying them out to dry, but I don't have room for that.  This will have to do.

If I find I like making cattail baskets, I will likely put together a frame of some sort so that I can dry my vegetable matter properly.  I'll bet it will be a good place to dry herbs, too.

I've only collected enough cattail leaves to make one practice basket that I can learn and screw up on, then one medium-sized first real, usable basket.  At least I hope it doesn't take me more than one practice.  I probably ought to collect more cattail leaves, just in case...

And that's how it starts.  I always have good intentions to begin with.  I just want to get a little bit of stuff, just enough to try it out.  But if I like it, won't I need more stuff?  Shouldn't I be getting the stuff now, when the getting's good?  If I don't get a full range of stuff right from the start, I won't get the complete experience, and migt not be able to figure out if I really did like it or not.  I'll live my whole life not knowing whether I could have really rocked cattail baskets because I didn't really go for it.  And if catails do it for me, or even if they don't, maybe rattan will be more my style.  .  Pretty soon I'll have to find room for a couple of big containers of basketry supplies. 

So anyhoo, I have mixed feelings about starting up with basketmaking.  Really, the last thing I need is a new hobby.  I have a quilt that's not quite half done, a blanket on the knitting loom, a bag on the big bead loom, a project I want to do on the small bead loom, and I need to make some pants.  And a new purse.  On the other paw, baskets will be very useful in my world.  I can use them to attractively store all of my other projects.

FT