Make cordage from plant fibre

Cordage is the craft that unlocks most of the others. Lashings, snares, fishing lines, bow drills, netting, handles, sewing heavy material and every improvised structure need cord, and it is the one consumable in this domain you can genuinely make from a hedgerow.

It is also slow. A metre of good cord is perhaps twenty minutes once you are practised, which is why the honest advice is to buy and store rope now and treat this as the skill that matters when the stored rope has run out. See knots and lashings for looking after what you already have.

Which plants

Nettle is the one to learn on. It is everywhere, it costs nothing, and the fibre is genuinely strong. Cut the tallest stems you can find late in the season, when the plant has stopped growing and begun to die back. Gloves, obviously, although the sting is largely gone in a dry autumn stem.

Lime bast is the best of the lot if you have a lime tree. The inner bark peels off in long sheets in spring and, after retting, separates into ribbons that make rope of real quality.

Grass, ivy and most soft green plants are not worth it. They make cord that looks right and breaks under load.

Getting the fibre out

The fibre you want, the bast, runs the length of the stem underneath the outer skin and around a woody core.

For nettle, dry-processed, which is the quickest method:

1. Cut the stem at the base and strip the leaves and side shoots off.
2. Flatten the stem by running it between finger and thumb, or crush it gently underfoot on a hard surface. It should split along its length.
3. Open it out flat into a ribbon.
4. Snap the woody core in short sections and peel it away from the fibre. Work along the whole length, bending and lifting the woody pith off in pieces.
5. You are left with a ribbon of fibre. Rub it between the palms to break up the last of the pith and soften it.
6. Let it dry, then damp it slightly before twisting. Bone dry fibre is brittle and damp fibre is limp; slightly damp is right.

For bramble, strip the thorns off by drawing the cane through a folded cloth, then split the cane and peel out the fibrous layer.

For bark and bast, peel long strips from the tree in spring, then ret them.

Retting

The traditional method, slower and better, which uses controlled rotting to release the fibre from the tissue around it.

• Submerge the stems in water: a pond, a slow stream, a water butt or a barrel. Weight them down.
• Leave for one to three weeks, depending on temperature. Check every few days.
• It is ready when the outer material slips off the fibre easily and the fibres separate from each other cleanly.
• Do not over-ret. Past the point of release the rot starts on the fibre itself and it goes weak and short.
• Rinse well, then dry thoroughly.

The reverse wrap

One motion, repeated. Everything else is detail.

1. Take a bundle of fibre and find the point about a third along its length, rather than the middle, so the two halves end at different points and your splices will be staggered.
2. Twist at that point until the bundle kinks and folds back on itself, making a small loop. That loop is the start.
3. Hold the loop between finger and thumb of one hand. You now have two strands hanging down.
4. Take the upper strand. Twist it away from you, tightly, several turns.
5. Cross it over the other strand, towards you.
6. Change hands so the strand you just moved is now the lower one, and repeat: twist the upper away, cross it towards you.
7. Keep going. That is the entire technique.

The two motions must be opposite. Each ply is twisted one way and the two plies are laid together the other way. That opposition is what stops the cord unravelling, and it is why it holds without any knot.

Keep the tension even and keep the twist tight. A loose cord looks the same and has a fraction of the strength.

Work damp. Fibre that is slightly damp lies together and grips; dry fibre springs apart.

Splicing in more fibre

You will run out of fibre long before you run out of cord, and joining in more is the part that decides whether the cord is any good.

• Splice before the strand runs out, when there is still 5 cm or so left.
• Lay the new fibre alongside the old, overlapping generously, tapered rather than blunt.
• Carry on wrapping. The twist traps it. There is no knot.
• Never splice both strands at the same point. That makes a weak spot the width of the cord. Because you started a third of the way along the bundle, the two halves naturally run out at different times, which staggers the splices automatically.
• Taper the ends of both the old and the new fibre so the join does not make a lump.

A well-spliced cord has no point where you can see or feel the join, and it breaks somewhere random rather than at a splice.

Making it thicker

Two-ply cord is the basic unit. For rope, make several lengths of two-ply cord and then reverse wrap those together, in the opposite direction again.

That gives you a three-stage structure: fibres twisted one way into plies, plies laid the other way into cord, cords laid back the first way into rope. Each layer locks the one below it, and this is exactly how manufactured rope is built.

Expect a lot of fibre. A metre of finger-thick rope is a serious quantity of nettle.

What it is good for

Be honest about the strength. Hand-made plant cordage is fine for lashings, snares, netting, handles, bow drill cord, fishing line, sewing heavy material and tying almost anything around the house.

It is not for anything that holds a person, and not for anything above somebody's head. See the warning on knots and lashings: even manufactured rope is not for that without rated equipment and training, and hand-made cordage is a long way below manufactured rope.

It rots. Natural fibre cord left outdoors, or put away damp, loses strength from the inside without looking any different. Dry it, store it dry, and inspect anything that has been outside.

Test it before you rely on it. Make a length, then pull it apart with your hands and see what it takes. That single test tells you more about your own cordage than any description can.

Practising

• Start with nettle in autumn, because it is abundant, free and forgiving.
• Make a metre. It will be lumpy and uneven, and the second metre will be noticeably better.
• Then make a metre of something useful and use it: a handle for a bucket, a lashing on a garden frame, a washing line for one shirt.
• String and baler twine unravel into practice fibre if you want to learn the reverse wrap indoors in winter without processing anything.