This year’s hay is tied with blue bailing twine.
It was back in 2014 that I started making my Rapunzel Chair using bailing twine and an old chair without a seat. Minnie, Flo and the hens loved to sit on it, sometimes all together. It took two season of hay to finish it.
There’s a lot of baling twine between then and now. Every year since then I think of doing something with the two strings that hold the bales of hay together. In 2014 the baling twine was natural jute. For years since then our hay has come bundled with plastic orange twine.
This year it’s blue. But as far as I can tell, it’s not that color that inspired me. It was the twine draped over one of the fence posts, from our first year on the farm, that gave me the idea.
Why not drape it over the gate post and do the braiding and macrame knots I used on the Rapunzel Chair.
My plan is to knot this seasons baling twine on the gate post.
My kind of art, using what I have at hand and speaking to the rhythms of the farm. I have no idea what this will look like when it’s done. Or how many hay seasons it will take to be done. I don’t have a name for it yet.
But that’s part of the fun.
Each time I pull a piece of bailing twine from a bale of hay and knot it on the gate post, I’ll put up a picture of it. So you’ll be able to follow the process and progress along with me.
Above is a picture with three pieces of blue bailing twine. Below is a picture with four more.
The yarn/fiber community been doing an activity called Yarn Bombing for years. It is always fun to find a art in unexpected places!
Yes, Deena, I’m aware of Yarn Bombing. I was doing a version of it myself in the late nineties when I was getting my MFA I just didn’t have a name for it then. 🙂