Spending the weekend on beautiful San Juan Island at the Christie cabin, "Cape house" but the hands are staying busy making twine from stinging nettles. I have been wanting to do this since I learned that the Coast Salish Indians for perhaps thousands of years have used the strong fibers of nettles to make twine, rope, bow strings, fish nets, and all sorts of other essential things. I determined to learn how it was done
Here I sit on the deck with the essential ingredients. A long nettle stalk stripped of its stinging leaves. ( I wore gloves to do that) You can see the green pliable and incredibly strong fibers hanging over my pant leg, Those are ready to twist into twine.
The fibers are separated from the long stem by gently crushing the stem between the two rocks
Then the hollow stem can be split open to expose the woody inner structure. If you bend it over your finger large sections of the wood can be separated from the green outer layer which contains the desired fibers.
As you can see, it is a it of a messy project but a broom handles the dry chaff nicely.
Like all projects like this, you learn how to do it by doing it. I slowly got better at separating the fibers. I learned that it is really easier to produce good material using green, this years nettles, than the dry nettles that I had picked last year and stored in my garage. Here you see the dried stalks and several coils of fibers hat I had produced.
Now the challenge is to twist it into twine. Tune in tomorrow for the final results.
Now the challenge is to twist it into twine. Tune in tomorrow for the final results.
