I’ve written posts previously on making Cordage from nettles, lime bark and sweet chestnut.  This time it’s brambles.  Bramble cordage is actually quite easy to do, the preparation is straightforward.  The only caveat is that (in my experience) you can only do this in the late part of spring and the early part of summer as it then becomes too difficult to peel away the outer fibres/skin.

First up find a young, vibrant bramble stem, these are going to be the bright green ones; you’ll notice that it has 5 sides so with a little care you can extract 5 fibres from each bramble.  Hold the top end in one hand and start a cut on one side at the bottom of the bramble with the other hand.

Once you’ve made an incision, you can put your knife away and use your hand.

Gently peel the fibre up the length of the bramble paying special care where there are side shoots.

Once you’ve taken the whole thing off, gently rub the thorns to remove them.  And you’re left with a useful fibre that you could use as it is or that can be made into a 2 ply cord as described in this post.

We make cordage on many of our courses, including the IOL Bushcraft Competency Certificate course, our 5 Day Bushcraft Course, and of course on our Cordage & Containers  day.  You can see plenty of photos from all of these courses on our Facebook page.

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