BROOM SQUIRE'S SHOP

Here, under the sky is the Broom Squire, in this case Brenda, who is happily creating fine home- made brooms from willow, thorne, maple, sorghum (broom corn) and linen cord.  She has endeavoured to create high- quality, long lasting products from all- natural materials.

Sometimes folks want her to make a special broom, say a special hand- carved besom or some such.  These special orders are enthusiastically received but might take awhile to do properly.  But at present, she has more than a hundred brooms, whisks and besoms in stock, ready to present to her admiring public.

((click on image to see larger version)
 

This kind of broom is also commonly used as a cake tester, and was hung up beside the stove, never to be actually used on the floor!  The ribbons were often a weave of souvenir hair ribbons from girlhood, and always a ribbon from the bridal dress, bonnet or bouquet.   Tradition has it that new wives were frequently given these cake- testing brooms on their wedding day by the mother- in- law, who would drop in from time to time to check the "kitchen switch" to ensure that lots of good cakes and baking were being made for her son and grandchildren. Regardless of that, just consider that since cakes are usually only  made for happy occasions such as birthdays and such, a kitchen witch (as it came to be called) that is missing hundreds of its straws represents hundreds of happy times.

Above is a close-up of the fine weaving which all these brooms.   I unwound some of the bottom binding to show a little bit of the underbroom in this picture.  There is a whole 'nother broom bound onto the broom stick with binder twine first before we even think about binding on the pretty top layer.   The top stalks are all first- hand selected to be as close to the same as possible, then an odd number of them put in hot water to soak until they become pliable.  Using two heavy linen cords together, Brenda carefully winds the cords onto the bundle, and weaves over and under the stalks of the sorghum.  The final cutting of the stalks is done with a razor blade while it is still wet...because if you wait until it is dry, the stalks are just too stiff and woody to cut cleanly.  The business end of the broom may be trimmed at any time.  The less trimming you do on the end, the more of the fine branches of broom corn remain to do their job.  A broom which looks a little ragged is therefore the better broom!

IIn the above picture, you can see why we be-ribbon the broom.  Because the hurl is so long, the little straws can out of control unless you install keepers of some sort to hold everything in place.  For a round broom, it is easy to wrap on a couple of turns of cord...and we supply them with such keepers in place.  Commercial broom makers frequently clamp the broom in a big horizontal vice, and use a big long needle to go back and forth through the hurl to flatten out the broom and give it a more tradional "corn broom" shape.  This shape of broom is ideal for reaching up into "those" corners of the house to take down the spider webs.

Here at South Tower, the Broom Squires have all agreed that we prefer the round brooms to the flat brooms.  As for what you can use as keepers, we can't think of anything more appropriate than old hair ribbons, though tartan cloth was pretty common on the old curling brooms.  I have seen old hockey socks (the fancy knitted ones you used to darn) with their feet cut off  used as nostalgia loaded keepers.  Clearly here is an opportunity to get artistic!

(click on image to see larger version)

Here is Brenda's "Turbo 2002" super broom.  What can I say!  Besides "never again" that is.  Well, it does go to show how good Brenda is at making brooms!  This one took me and Brenda over two hours to create but worth the effort.  And a lovely broom it is too!  A good robust hazel broom stick with two separate 15 stalk round brooms on each branch.  Forgive me, but I don't want to sell this broom...but I do want to show it off!