#blackberry bramble

[balkanradfem]

Basketry: Take two

So if you remember, a few days ago I attempted to make a basket out of unprocessed, unknown type of bush/tree, and it was fun! It didn’t produce a basket, but I got some practical knowledge.

Since then, I’ve started following a lot of basketry groups and blogs, and the things I’ve learned have made me impressed and intrigued. Firstly, these people have no limits in what they’ll make a basket of; trees, grasses, dry stems of plants, houseplants, dry corn leaves, wild brambles, tree bark, vines, you name it; they’ve made a basket out of it. Secondly, they’re not just making natural baskets, but cordage, out of almost every natural material! They know how to process stems of cattails and all kinds of plants in order to get the fibers and make them into little cords, and then they can even use those cords for making baskets! And the cords can be used for anything you would need a piece of string, like macrame, crafts, tying up plants, it’s incredible!

So now I’m determined to get more of this knowledge, it seems almost godly to be able to go out in the wild and then create practical items out of every piece of grass, stem and tree.

One vital piece of information I’ve gathered, is that you can harvest blackberry bramble using thick gloves and shears, and then you run it thru a piece of old denim in order to scrub all of the thorns from it, and it’s usable for basketry. This information feels golden, because not only is blackberry is perfectly pliable and easy to manipulate in basketry, but it’s invasive and overgrowing the entire field I work on, so making it usable for practical purposes is a dream come true. I will be testing this out today!

So I’m at it again; I’m out and first thing I want to do is collect that same non-identified tree/bush branches in order to try and complete my failed basket. I’m smarter this time, so I’ll be collecting only the thinnest and most pliable branches!

This is how that bush thing looks like, it even has some black berries, which makes me believe it’s a rhamnus (Buckthorn). Anyway, I got a bunch of it, and then went to look for the blackberry brambles.

I found this grass situation on the way, and figured that if everything else fails, I can always try to make some grass stuff? Grass has to be easy to weave with, it’s extremely pliant. The only thing is, this grass’ edge is very sharp. It gave me a papercut almost immediately. Still, I got a bunch. Maybe it won’t matter that it’s sharp.

Okay, so I arrived at the blackberry place, and I have my very thick gloves on, and I’ll try running the vines thru a piece of old denim, to see if it really removes all those thorns:

Not only it worked, it worked immediately and perfectly! I was careful to run it in both directions, but even after running it once, the brambles have been smooth and safe to handle! I was able to hold it in my hand! I’m extremely pleased, and I spent next 15 minutes pulling out the invasive blackberries, and making good material out of them:

My piece of denim is a bit filthy, but it isn’t badly damaged! It will be good for more times.

So, I got home, put all that stuff on the floor, and figured I should go see if I can re-do my last basket. It’s been on my balcony ever since, drawing the attention and sympathy of the onlookers. Here’s what I got:

Since the spines of the last basket were essentially fine, I tore off all of the branches I attempted to weave with the last time, and decided to start again, this time with a bit thinner ones!

And it started off great! Mind you, I was still using a LOT of brute force here, these branches did not want to bend the way I wanted them to, I was being pretty aggressive to make it look like this. The start looks awesome, and then I realized that bending the basket to go up, is not as easy as it was with newspapers, and I struggled a bit to make the bend and to continue weaving upwards.

And here’s a basket! As you can see, I didn’t end it very professionally, I just cut off the ribs and pushed in the handle (it’s not safely inside, it could detach with weight), but this, this is definitely a basket-shaped item! Compared to the last thing I did, this is a good learning curve in the working.

Now, sadly, this basket is barely usable, or more specifically, it’s usable only for the stuff that doesn’t mind being stabbed. Since the material was so hard to bend, when I wanted to put in a new branch, I had to stab it into the basket, and force it into any opening available; I couldn’t tuck it down nicely as you’re supposed to. So at the end, I had to cut a whole lot of branch endings, and the sharp edges have remained everywhere; you can get stabbed just by holding this thing.

Not to despair, this is a learning basket, and now I know there’s a problem like that, I can work on it! I filled that basket with walnuts and pinecones and I’m perfectly happy with how it looks right now.

This basket will also show me how this material stands the test of time; when raw materials like this dry, they usually shrink up, so the basket might lose a bit of it’s shape, and I will see in few months what it looks like.

I still have blackberry bramble, some drying dandelion stems, twine, and my grass, but I did tire myself out making this, so I’ll leave those for another day. And when some of these materials manage to dry, I will try doing the proper process of drying and soaking, to see what difference does it make to use raw vs prepared material. But this is what the raw thing can do! I’m happy to know it.

[trippingthemoonlightfantastic]

Blushing Brambles

Watercolor On Black Cotton Paper

2023, 8"x 10'

Blackberry Blossoms

Private Collection

[colorsoutofearth]

Harvest mouse (Micromys minutus) on bramble in autumn

Photo by Klein & Hubert

[lost-harts]

August 2024

[wishingstarinajar]

Will I, a sickly woman with no energy or muscles, be able to take down a shoulder-high bramble-infested garden with a newly bought brush cutter?

I don't feking know, man, but someone has to do it.

[rherlotshadow]

An ocean of brambles

[smaller-comfort]

We picked a quart of blackberries from the backyard this afternoon, so it was clearly time for me to drink inadvisable amounts of whiskey and commit atrocities in the kitchen. First up, that "crustless pie" recipe that was going around a bit ago:

The batter feels a bit like sugar cookie dough that you mix fruit into, so that was...interesting. (Recipe here: Crustless Strawberry Pie.) Given how overripe these berries were, maybe not the best choice. I need to get an oven thermometer because nothing ever bakes in the correct time frame. The recipe recommends underbaking it, which also gives me some ??????? feelings because, again, that batter has some odd proportions, and the bake time is listed as 34-39 minutes which. ?????? Why not just...say 35-40. I kept it in there for at least 45 because there's "slightly underbaked" and then there's "salmonella incubator". We'll see how it tastes. Worst case scenario, I bring it to work and feed it to my coworkers like I did the zucchini bread.

In the oven currently is a tray of blackberry pie bars (recipe here: Blackberry Pie Bars); in true #DisasterKitchen fashion, I didn't realize I was out of cornstarch until I'd measured out the berries. Cue the fastest grocery run I have ever made; the crustless pie had 17 minutes left on the timer, and I made it back with cornstarch and a pound of butter with 3 minutes to spare.

Soon...soon...

[peppermint-moss]

warrior cat oc design commissions (and 1 coloured sketch) from July!

commission info || ko-fi (tip jar)

[autumncottageattic]

d.i.e.f.o.t.o.g.r.a.f.i.n

[balkanradfem]

Basketry part 4: The Blackberry Bramble

So, you remember me dragging home all that blackberry vine, and figuring out how I could get rid of all the thorns just by running it thru a piece of old denim? They're now ready to be weaved!

After experimenting with raw materials, it turned out, it's worth waiting for the materials to dry, and then soak them, and only then weave. Baskets from raw materials dry very poorly, and become flimsy and weak. So, these have been drying for a few weeks, and I left them in a bucket of water overnight, and now they're nice and pliable.

I'm very nervous about this basket, because it's the kind I've never done before and it looks so cool to me! It's weaved with ivy originally, but I decided blackberry bramble would be okay too. It also takes 2 pre-made hoops, which I made out of young peach wood, that I was pruning recently and realized it would be a good basket material. Here are my hoops, and this is what you do with them:

They're going to be the frame of the basket! I fastened these with a thin piece of blackberry vine, and the next step is to make a specific type of weave to keep them together, called 'God's Eye', which I find very cool. Here's how it looks!

I was intimidated by this until I tried it, and then it turned out to be the simplest, most instinctive thing ever. Next step is to put ribs in the basket! These are also young peach branches. I was worried how they're going to stay still in there, and then it turned out, god's eye is perfect for holding ribs, I did not have any trouble at all keeping them tight in there.

And the last step, you can already see started in the picture, is to weave the vine around the god's eye, and then from one side of the basket to another, all the way until you're finished. It's a bit finnicky because you have to pull the entire vine thru the ribs, every time, but once you get a hang of it, it's fun to do it!

I had trouble because as I came close to the middle of it, I realized I wouldn't have enough blackberry bramble to finish it up! I felt as if I gathered soo many, but in the end, it was barely enough to scrap one basket together.

The first picture is when I started panicking for real, and the second shows just how close I was to finishing it. It's not super noticeable that there's some bramble missing, so I just decided to go ahead and call it finished. Here it is!

There's a lot of room for improvement here, but it's absolutely the best basket I've made out of wild materials so far, and I'm so happy about it! I might do a few more, but, this time, I'll make sure to gather enough bramble.

You can find the detailed instructions to make the basket here!

[indigrassy]

Allegheny blackberry

[trippingthemoonlightfantastic]

Blushing Brambles

Watercolor On Black Cotton Paper

2023, 8"x 10'

Blackberry Blossoms

Private Collection

[psalacanthea]

Yay! The lil plant that self-seeded in one of my herb pots is not, in fact, a rosemary, but lavender! I have no idea where he came from, but I'm very happy to see him. If I can get him to overwinter ok, I'll transplant him to the front garden.

My chives are self-seeding a leetle too aggressively, but that's chives for you. I just need to harvest the blossoms for a while instead of letting them dry. Good on salads, though!

My thyme that died in last year's heatwave has only come back about a quarter of the way, and my sad little sage plant is still hanging on, but the mint's having a good time. OFC the mint always has a good time.

NGL, I've been thinking of saying screw it and filling my borders with mint in the hopes that it'd choke out any blackberry brambles the birds keep seeding all over my garden.

[lost-harts]

August 2023

[weepingfoxfury]

The man on the radio persists with his whereabouts being unknown (I suspect he's off in the wilds with the lost postman again) whilst the stand in lady on the radio says the show must go on. Weatherwise the seaweed is feeling dry so fingers crossed this ain't a false reading. The traffic lady rootless in and out with talk of tailbacks ... and autocorrect continues to accept my bad typing.

Today's groaner: I woke up this morning to find all my books and knick knacks scattered all over the floor ... I have only my shelf to blame. ;-D badoom tish ... here all week!!

Tip trip today! No really, truly ... the seaweed being dry today is the day! No ifs, buts or maybe I'll go next week spluttering ... the big shed has to be emptied before I find cars queueing up with trailers full of recycling cos they heard a new dump had opened its doors. ;-)

I'll leave you with a seemingly large and floating blackberry whilst I throw back a little more coffee before heading out to the car ...