Laying the Table

My little (well not so little really) brother has just moved in to his own house. He's finally got a place of his own instead of having a room in a shared house. 

I thought I should make him and his girlfriend a present, but I am short on free time at the moment, so a knitted blanket was out!

However, at Woolfest this year I had seen some very nice woven placemats, where instead of using yarn as the weft (the strand that goes across the width of the cloth), the weaver had used thin sticks. 

Mine are a decidedly more rustic version, but do have their own charm.

The sticks came from the lane behind our house. The trees we cut down 2 years ago, that had formeerly been a hedge, are now growing shoots from the base. Stripped of leaves, and left to dry they worked perfectly.

They'll certanly insulate the table from anything hot, and worst case scenario, everything in them is natural so should they find their way to the compest heap they'll slowly break down and leave no trace. 

I had a length of warp left, because I didn't meassure and do sums, so that was just woven using some more linen to make a table runner to match the mats.