Basket made from coiled sycamore leaf stems and strands of rope found on beach
This week I decided to use the stems of sycamore leaves that can be found in abundance on the ground at this time of year near where I live on the Isle of Arran.
Sycamore Leaves
After removing the actual leaves from the stems I left them for a few days to dry out a bit as I knew they would shrink as the moisture evaporated from them. They actually shrank quite a bit and I used a lot of stems to make a tiny basket.
I used a coiling technique where bundles of the stems were sown together with strands of a piece of rope that I found washed up on the beach here.
Start of coiling with strands of rope and sycamore leaf stems
Section of rope found washed up on the beach
The picture above is of the rope I found pictured with some seaweed I also collected (look out for that in another basket!). The length of the rope was quite short and so I had to join new bits in while coiling quite frequently making it quite a time consuming process. As you can see the strands in the piece of rope were all different colours so the result was quite colourful basket, however.
Basket coiled with sycamore leaf stems and strands of rope found on beach
The basket is only about 2 inches high, took several hours to make but I like it. It was satisfying to make something without having to pay for materials and hopefully I will get faster and neater with my coiling with more practise.