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!