The rarely taught hand-twisted cattail leaf rush class took place on the North House Folk School campus on February 3 & 4, 2007, so the campus looked a bit different from the one posted above!
That picture was taken in the summertime, and we were there in the middle of winter, but at least you can appreciate the beauty of the campus situated on the shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota.
Here’s Cheryl Winter getting a good start on weaving her Portuguese bulrush seat. She had taken a previous class of mine using cattail leaves, and so this time, she wanted to experience the imported Portuguese bulrush instead.
The Portuguese bulrush is imported and is different from cattail leaves in that it has a round shaft and brown, round, or oval seed heads or flowerets at the top, whereas cattails have flat leaves with cylindrical or cigar-shaped spike seed heads that explode when mature, shedding large quantities of down.
And here is Phyllis Miller working on her cattail leaf footstool. This was her first attempt at doing any rush weaving, so I was surprised that not only did she pick up the rush weaving pattern extremely well, but she also got the hang of twisting the cattails to make the rope.
Wow, these gals are doing far better than I did on my first paper fibre rush job, done from instructions in a magazine!
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Happy Weaving, until next time!
