Wheat Weaving Workshop at Pysanka Festival
Rosanne Fortier
News Correspondent
Elsie Kawulych and Edith Zawadiuk, Directors and Life Members for Vegreville Cultural Association and Vegreville Pysanka Festival instructed people how to do wheat weaving by virtual means at the Vegreville 47th Annual Pysanka Festival on July 3, 4, and 5.
When I interviewed Zawadiuk on how to do wheat weaving she said she doesn’t know when people started doing wheat weaving but she presumed it is a fairly ancient craft.
“Wheat weaving is used for decorative reasons. People used to hang what they made with wheat weaving on their walls in their homes. It is not difficult to do wheat weaving as it is done the exact same way you braid hair.
You have to use wheat before it reaches the hard boiled stage. You can use any number of stems; if you want a wider braid you use more stems. You remove the extra leaves. You make a decision about how many stems you are going to use and then you tie where the head of the wheat together and then you just braid it; like you do a normal braid. Then because the wheat is soft, the stems are soft. If you get dry wheat you have to soak it in water, in order to get the stems to be soft because they have to be pliable.
So then if you want to make a heart shape, you make a heart shape with the wheat and then you take a ribbon and tie it by taking the end of the stems and put it behind the heads of the wheat and tie it with a ribbon. You can also put a few flowers on it. You can make a lot of different things, it depends what artistic skills you have.”