This third hat from last week is mine, MINE! The hatband is inkle-woven from cotton threads. I looked out over the lake and designed it from the view. At first I resisted putting the blue and brown together, but the lake is the color of tea and the sky and sun reflects off it. When I started weaving, I was happy with the choices I made. This hat is pretty rough compared to my other ones because I was getting down to the dregs of my supplies, but I like it the best.

The first two before the final trimming, drying on the screened porch. They are now in the possession of my mother, who helped me gather the cattails and couldn’t decide which one she wanted.

All three were handwoven with cattail leaves and a small amount of bulrush.

That’s Squ!rt in the corner, helping me with my weaving.  I only did a few minutes worth of weaving tonight, because I had a big day and need some sleep!  This inkle band will go on the Lake Waccamaw hat.

I wove this bulrush hat while at Lake Waccamaw, incorporating driftwood, little sycamore balls, Spanish moss, and a mockingbird feather. The ducks were hanging on to their feathers, and I’m surprised that with all the fights the mockingbirds didn’t lose more.

The unmercerized cotton band was intended to be green, blue, and purple to represent the shores and waves, but my inkle loom tension bar blew out and I had to use the first band I wove. Not bad, but when I get my new tension bar, I’ll ditch the red and replace it with green.

I also wove a flat bowl with a twill pattern in the center, twined for several rows, and finished it off with a five strand woven edge. It looks rough because I was trying to use up the rest of the soaked bulrush, which was getting really funky, and because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time. I can’t blame it on beer, but it looks pretty drunk…oh all right, here’s a photo.

While I was there, I gathered honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, and green briar vines to bring back. The green briars are fairly wicked, but if you work back from the tip where there are no briars, you can snap off each thorn easily and strip the leaves where more thorns hide. The vine itself is very sturdy and will probably make good spokes but I have not tried weaving with it yet. Jan from the Folk School suggested that it could be used when we took our basketry materials identification walk.

One of the reasons that you have to be careful when gathering Virginia creeper is that poison ivy likes to hide in it. A leader in a local outing club argued with me once that Virginia creeper was poison ivy. He was wrong and wouldn’t back down, but I can see why he was so convinced. Here’s a photo that shows why - the shiny darker three-leafed vine in the center is poison ivy surrounded by the lighter five-leafed Virginia creeper. I left this alone!

I loved making them. It was easy and relaxing. A bit stinky, but I’ve never been one to care about that much. After a few days of soaking, the cattails and bulrush smelled sort of like a cross between a barn and a swamp. The instructors were easy-going and fun to listen and talk to. Everyone in the class, which was only five students and two teachers, was laid back. We got a lot of personal attention and a lot of insights into life around Brasstown and Murphy, North Carolina.

First, I made a wide-brimmed garden hat entirely out of cattail leaves. We used hat forms. They were useful in pinning the weaving close together and keeping the size and shape intact while the hat dried. The cattails separated a lot when they dried.

The next hat was a bowler (derby) hat made entirely out of bulrush. This was soft and pliable to work with, and allowed a tighter, more controlled weave.

In the meantime, I was working on a five-strand raffia braid to sew into a raffia hat. As badly as I wanted to make a fedora, my fingers had a different opinion. I needed 8-10 yards of braid for the hat. I had an awkward time with the braiding and on Thursday morning I woke up with numb hands.

So I decided to give up the raffia hat and make another hat, this time out of cattails and bulrush, with a flat top and short brim. I also decided to weave an inkle band, so that I could switch off to a different activity when my body told me that it had had enough. I’ve woven inkle bands for several years, so I was more interested in learning the basketry techniques. However, it was good to get a refresher on the inkle loom since it has been a while, and I enjoyed weaving on the porch of Keith House late Thursday afternoon. Part of the appeal of the inkle loom is its portability. The design was based on the colors I brought and a walk on a path between a road and a meadow with wild mustard and white and purple violets.

My classmates wove the two hats in the front of this photo. My final hat is drying in the back. More photos later.

I was blessed by the Easter Bunny…

Because he really liked our Easter bonnets.