Meeting 7: Boiling Before Retting

“A watched pot never boils.”

— My mom

After our second collaborative Vine to Cloth Kudzu camp we gathered and harvested kudzu from the patch across the street form our meeting site at Local Cloth. We looked for long runner vines that ran parallel and could be gathered and cut together. The mulched area between the parking lot and the patch was an ideal harvesting location for fresh vines for fiber. After coiling the freshly cut vines we separated the leaves from the vines. The leaves can be used to make paper or for animal fodder. No need to waste!

After, we experimented with boiling the vines. We had to recoil them to match the size of our pot and found a brick behind Local Cloth that would work well for weighing down the vines in the pot. We boiled for 1 hour and let the vines ferment in the pot over night.

While we waited for the Kudzu to boil Julia made a free form basket from the fresh vines. This style basket is inspired by Nancy Basket’s approach to weaving baskets with kudzu.

See you in the weeds,

x Nica