Grass sandals......9,000 years old :)

[Toddy]

There's a report on the BBC this morning about the finds from a Spanish cave.
The dates of the artefacts have been reassessed and it's now believed that the grass sandals are c9,000 years old.

The coiled grass is just as we still do it now. I make baskets and mats like this.
You don't need to chop down trees to gather practical and useful material

Europe's oldest shoe found in Spanish bat cave

The 6,000-year-old woven sandals are among dozens of prehistoric objects being analysed by scientists.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[TLM]

So Espadrilles have some history, that actually might be semi useful skill to have, one never knows when shoes are lost ...

 

[Toddy]

Leather shoes are brilliant, but leather takes a lot of work to make well. Grass grows pretty much everywhere in one form or another. Or grass like leafy things, anyway.

Grass work can be done even by the very elderly, the young, those who are just sitting at peace blethering. It can be pick up and put down sort of stuff, like that basket I showed being made from the iris leaves a while ago.
It's good practice for folks who don't work outside every day, it's clean stuff about the house, it's safe near children and pets, etc., Costs nothing but ten minutes time to collect.

I sometimes wonder why more folks don't have a go at it.

M

 

[TLM]

I sometimes wonder why more folks don't have a go at it.

Have you tried to make something from grass rope? I haven't, though I know that Sami used to have hay instead of socks.

Looks like one of the grasses used in making shoe soles grows here too, I may have to get some.

 

[Toddy]

Have you tried to make something from grass rope? I haven't, though I know that Sami used to have hay instead of socks.

Looks like one of the grasses used in making shoe soles grows here too, I may have to get some.

I've made a few things, from sandals to baskets to bedroll/sitting mats.

If you make the grass rope really thick then it coils and stitches up very quickly.
If you plait it then it makes a long thick ribbon of a rope that coils really well to make the soles of espadrills.

I think there's only a thread on one of the baskets I made a while ago though.
I'll find a link.

M

 

[Toddy]

This basket is made from the grass like slender leaves from a small iris. It's just the same as using any other long leaf. Grass is usually bundled and you feed the bundle into your stitching coil though.
In this one I made the rope first and then stitched that. Plaiting it goes the same way.
If you're doing thigh or spindle rolling to make a two ply cord then you really need to take off the leaves from the grass stems first, or use a longer fibre, like nettle, ramie, hemp, flax, etc.,
I know that in S. America they just gather and use the grass as is, but it's a very fine grass while ours is inclined to be on silica rich stiff stems.

For a heavy grass rope, like those used in agriculture in the past then just a pile of grass was used and a hook through a tube was used to turn the grass into rope....there was a thread recently on making one of those. Those ropes were used to tether down haystacks and the like, but they make really good big coiled pot type storage baskets too.

This is the thread on the rope basket I made....

Of potential and baskets

I saw the berries on the ivy on the side fence. They'll be ready in a few weeks, and I want them for dye. I'd pruned the Irises not so long ago, and the dried leaves were still lying beside the greenhouse. They looked useful I thought :D I reckoned they had potential. So I made a half a...

bushcraftuk.com

and this is the thread on the grass rope making hook, which is called a Thrawcock, and was used to make heather rope too.

Home made Thrawcock

One for Mr Fenna as I know he likes making rope. While I was researching how to make Heather rope (traditionally used on the Isle of Lewis where I come from) I came across a number of variations of what I am calling a Thrawcock (there seems to be a variety of names for this tool). I think I...

bushcraftuk.com

and this is the thread I posted last year about a Chinese lady making grass rope to then make into a kennel for her puppies

Making straw/grass rope :)

I know I talked about making this before, but it's kind of hard to describe just 'how' to get the twist in. Thing is though, anyone with an overgrown lawn can make this stuff :) However, there's a Chinese lady who does interesting things, and here she is making straw rope to make into a kind of...

bushcraftuk.com

M

 

[Tony]

That's cool stuff, it would be great to have a sandal workshop at the moot using grass.
Nice find Mary