Raffia and Cattail Sandals
(Page 2 of 4)
May/June 1985
By the Mother Earth News editors
Prepare the raffia by trimming any hard ends from the strips, and set aside a handful of especially wide and pliable strands to use as weavers. Bundle together enough of the other strips to make a suitably thick core, and trim their ends. Bend the core 8" from one end, and wrap the bend with a weaver (Fig. 1-A), securing the end of the weaver under the wrappings as you go. Now, with the 8" length alongside the longer piece, wrap tightly around the folded end several times with the weaver (Fig. 1-B). Bind the 8" piece to the other one using a figure-8 wrap (Fig. 1-C).
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When you reach the end of the 8" section, wrap several times around its tip, and then secure that end to the longer piece with a few tight wraps. Bend the free strands of the long section around the tip of the 8" rod, firmly wrapping the fibers of the bend as you do so. You now have an 8"-long double rod, and from this point on, you'll use the figure-8 lashing technique shown in Fig. 2 to coil core materials around this central rod. You'll need to thread the weaver onto a blunt-tipped yarn needle in order to accomplish this lashing.
Somewhere along the line you'll run out of weaver. When there's about 2" left, clamp the strand to the rod with a clothespin while you select another weaver from the ones you set aside earlier. Lay the new piece over the rod and alongside the old strand, leaving a 2" tail. Continue wrapping or lashing as before, but wrap over the tails of the old and new weavers as you go, to secure them in place.
Eventually you'll run out of core materials, too. When you've got about 2" left, clamp everything together with a clothespin while you make up another bundle of the same size. Add it to the existing core, allowing about 2" of overlap. Tapering the ends will prevent a clumpy effect where the two bundles join. Use a round-and-round wrap over the cut ends, then continue lashing the new bundle to the sole.
Weave on, tying each new row to the last, until you have six rows, three on each side of the center groove. It's now time to enlarge the sole to accommodate the wide part of your foot. To do this, lash the seventh coil to about one-third of the way down the sole from the toe. Now, bend the rod back on itself and begin lashing it in the opposite direction (Fig. 3). If you want to make right and left (rather than "either foot") sandals, continue weaving around the sole until it's wide enough for your foot (reverse the shaping for the opposite foot). If you prefer, you can bend the rod back on itself again when you reach the same spot on the other side of the sandal (Fig. 3); this will make the sole more or less symmetrical.
Try to finish the sale so that the end of the rod is unobtrusive. Tapering the rod into a curve looks good (Fig. 4). To do so, cut the bundle's end on a slant; then at the point just before the taper, lash the bundle down firmly with figure-8 and round-and-round wrapping. Finally, use round-and-round to bind the remainder of the bundle-the tapered ends-to the sole. The weaver can be inserted between these wrappings, then woven in . and out of the rods to secure it in place.
