Woven Cattail Mats

In a previous video we've shown you how to harvest and prepare cattail, mainly for food. Here we'll show you how to make woven cattail mats that we use for drying food on.

Woven Cattail Mat

  The end of summer is generally the best time for gathering cattail leaves, as they're about to die anyway. It's best to gather them while they're still completely green, before the tips turn brown.

Cut bundles of leaves just above the water level, leaving the plants with seed heads alone. A decent armload of leaf bundles should give you plenty of leaves to work with. You can cut off most of the white, thick, curved bottom parts of the leaves as you only want to work with the flat green leaves.

Then separate the leaves from each other and lay them out to dry individually in the shade. Keep moisture away or the leaves will rot fast. You can either dry them fully (they become very britlle then) and then rehydrate them in a wet towel overnight when you're ready to work with them, or start working with them after they've wilted for a couple of days but are not yet brittle, knowing that the leaves will shrink some more as they continue to dry.

Individual Cattail Leaves

I start the mats with four leaves in a basic over-and-under pattern.

Starting the Cattail Mat

If I'm working with just-wilted leaves I like to add a new leaf on each side as I go around and around, still using the same over and under pattern. It's important to keep the mat as square as possible as you do so, and it's preferable to have a fairly tight weave as the leaves will shrink and create more spaces.

If I'm working with dried leaves that were just rehydrated and I know I won't finish the mat in one sitting, it may be easier to only keep one side of the mat moist and add leaves only to that side, while leaving the rest dry.

Woven Cattail Mat

If the gaps between the leaves are too large for what you want to do with the mat you can rearrange them to make them tighter.

When you only have about 5 inches left on each side of the mat, it's time to think of finishing it up. You can fold the leaves over the mat and weave the ends into the other side to hold them tight (make sure the leaves are very pliable before you do that or they may break).

Edge of Woven Cattail Mat

You can also choose to wrap the end of the leaves around a stick to give it more support during transportation, still weaving them into the other side.

Edge of Cattail mat around a Stick

 

Frame underneath the cattail mat

You can also add a frame underneath the mat to create more airspace and to make it easier to transport. 

In this case, it's simply two sticks along the edges with three more sticks laid across them.

These sticks are lashed together with rehydrated cattail leaves spun into cordage and they are attached through the mat to keep it in place.

Frame held by Cattail Cordage

Don't try to fold the mat when you move it and store it or it may break. And make sure that it is stored away from any kind of moisture or the leaves will deteriorate quickly.

Putting the Cattail Mat to Good Use!

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