Making twine / cordage is another thing I learned thanks to Permies.com's SKIP program. It's honestly something I never considered, but it's one of the requirements for the first level textile badge, so I gave it a go. We could choose any plant material we wanted, so, like my little basket, I chose kudzu.
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| I chose thick kudzu vines to work with. |
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| The first step is to pound the vine to loosen the fibers. |
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| After a good pounding, the vines split apart easily. |
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| I kept splitting until I had a pile of thin strips. |
This is a two-handed job, but I had to use one hand to take some pictures! I started by tying off two strands to a chair.
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| Each hand twists a strand in the same direction. As the twist builds, the strands are twisted together in the opposite direction. This is called the 2-ply reverse method. |
It's the same as twisting fringe! I just never considered doing it with natural home-sourced material.
When one of the strands gets to the end, a new strand is added by twisting the two together.
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| A little further along. |
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| I ended up with about 20 feet. |
I was happy with how easy this was to do, and not quite as boring as I might have thought. It's a useful skill and I'm thinking I'd like to try homemade cordage for basket weaving. Some day.
© 2020 Leigh's Fiber Journal
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