“My piece, Hedgerow Headdress, was originally made for a millinery competition run by HATalk e-magazine - the theme was ‘Happy Place’. Using wheat straw, I have tried to re-imagine a special feature of the British countryside which should be protected and celebrated – the hedgerow.
I was inspired by memories of time spent as a child on my grandmother’s farm where I enjoyed rambling around the fields and exploring the hedgerows. I’ve no idea what variety of wheat was grown on the farm but I’ve learnt since that modern wheat isn’t suitable for straw work; it needs to be a heritage variety which has longer stems and hollow walls. The wheat (called Maris Widgeon) and rye straw I now use for my work, was grown in Staffordshire with minimal herbicide and no artificial fertiliser.
A one metre length of 5-end straw cord with an inner wire runs around the vintage, woven wheat straw base (a remnant from another project); it twists and turns like a bramble to support foliage, flowers and insects and even hides a corn dolly mouse. The leaves are leftover lengths of fine straw braid. I created the decorative motifs using Swiss straw techniques which rely on the careful preparation of each straw using tools made in Scotland.
I’ve learnt how to make my own straw thread, but at the time of making this piece I used threads made at Sreepur Village in Bangladesh, a charity supporting single mothers.
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