Take eight or ten of the blades of this grass and tie them together at the root-ends as in [Fig. 67], drawing the knot tight as in [Fig. 68]. Stick a pin through just below the knot and fasten to your knee; then lift two of the grasses at the right-hand side, and tie them together about one inch below the pin ([Fig. 68]). Tie the next two grasses together in the same manner, the next, and the next, until you have tied them all in pairs ([Fig. 69]). Make the second row by separating the pairs of the first and tying one grass of one pair to the neighboring grass of the next pair, making the knots one inch below the first row. This leaves the first and last grasses hanging loose ([Fig. 70]). On the third row the first and last grasses are tied in once more ([Fig. 70]). On the fourth they are left again, and so they alternate until the hammock is finished. Keep the rows of knots at even distances apart, and make the hammock as long as the length of the grass will allow. Leave about three inches of the grass below the last row of knots, and then tie the ends together as in the illustration. Swing the little hammock between the low-hanging branches of a tree; put your dolly in it and let the summer breezes rock her to sleep while you sing:
Rock-a-by baby in the tree-top.
A very pretty
Bouquet-Holder
can be made of seed-grasses and one long blade of grass. In this you may carry the most delicate wild flowers and ferns without wilting them by the warmth of your hand.
| Bouquet-holder made of seed-grass. | Fig. [71].—Bunch together the seed-grass stalks. |
Bunch together seven fine, strong seed-grass stalks and tie just below the blossoms, with the root-end of your long-blade grass ([Fig. 71]). The stems of the seed-grasses are the spokes, the long grass the weaver. Turn the blossom-ends down, the stem-ends up, and close to where it is tied, begin to weave the long grass in and out, under one spoke, over the next, under the third, over the fourth, going around and around spirally until the end of the weaver is reached, then tie it to one of the spokes. Keep forcing the spokes farther and farther apart as you weave until the holder is shaped like a cone. As you see in the illustration, the weaver never passes over one of the spokes twice in succession. In one row it goes over a spoke, in the next row under it, in the third over again, and so on. In order that it may always come this way you must have an uneven number of spokes. Four will not do, nor six, nor eight, but five, seven, or nine spokes will bring the weave out all right.
A Grass Napkin-Ring
is another thing that can be made by weaving or braiding the grasses.