Now that we have this 50 acre bush lot we decided to purchase some books on using and working with the land. In one of these books it discussed the many uses of cattails. We have at least 1 acre full of cattails so I thought this would be an easy place to start. One suggestion was to collect the pollen from yellow cattails (not the normal brown cattails) and this pollen can be used with flour for baking. After cutting down a cattail and spending an hour attempting to gather pollen I decided that maybe I should start smaller. That is when I set my aim on basket weaving. I thought "nobody fails at basket weaving".
Off I went. I cut a few cattails down and started my very first basket. I could not remember if I was supposed to start making the side of the basket or the bottom first. I started the side first which as I learned was my second mistake. When my basket was finished I realized that I had no way to connect the first and last side together...thus starting from the bottom is important.
After inspecting my basket today I found the spaces between my weaves were bigger and that it no longer sat up straight. That is when I realized my first mistake; I used green cattails. Apparently, you are supposed to use dry cattails that you then resoak prior to weaving. The reason the drying is so important is because cattails shrink to one quarter of their original size.
I give myself a C- for effort. Maybe my next post will show a proper basket.
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