I struggled at first with how to attach the walnuts to the gourd. I began to envision the rattlers as the “hairdo” and realized I should use a double strand rather than a single strand.


This photo shows my toolkit for this stage and most of the supplies. The dremel tool has the same bit I used on the walnuts - drilling a gourd is considerably easier than a walnut and the drill bit is one of my primary tools for carving holes in gourds. Also visible is a pack of star buttons I got at the craft store and which I used as the beads except on the upper right and left rattles next to the face. You can also see a pack of hemp beading line, a pair of hemostats, a clothespin and the paddd envelope where I store my rooster skin (it is the envelope it came in from my ebay vendor).

I doubled the line at the modpoint and pushed it through the hole I had drilled, then fished it out with the hemostats.I pushed the end loop through a button, opened the loop and passed it around the outside of the button so that the line was fixed on the button, and the botton acts as a stopper to hold the line. I held the line on the outside with a clothespin to keep it from pulling all the way through while making the button stopper for the inside, which would be a bummer.

Next I pushed the pair of lines through a second star button on the outside of the gourd and fixed it in place with a half hitch, leaving some slack so the walnut bead can swing. then passed the pair of lines through the walnut - this turned out to be easy, much to my relief. Finally, I added another star button on the outside of the walnut, again leaving a little slack and fixing it with a half hitch. With other line I might be concerned about fixing with a single half hitch, but the hemp twine is quite stiff and holds its shape.



At this point Ikey came by and made the "arrrr" I am a pirate noise and reminded me you have to hold your mouth right to get your art done properly.



I drilled the rest of the holes for the hairdo - two rows of 5 holes on the bottom and one row of 6 above and I attached the rest of the beads as above. A count showed I would have far too few star buttons, so I changed to regular buttons from the sewing kit. I used 4 reproduction ancient beads - also acquired at the craft store - for the upper right and left nuts. You can see in the picture these have quite different beads from the start beads. You can also see some of the butons used as anchors on the inside of the gourd.

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Rhythm Workers Union my inspiration for all things rhythmic

Guerilla Poetry Insurgency some wonderful people who understand the power and importance of the spoken word