Braided



My bent-stick approach to holding tension on the cord as it dries. This only works for braided, if it's spun cord you have to keep adding twists to it (of course spinning it takes less time up front!)



This fiber has been soaking for two days, and was even more supple. Also taking much longer to dry though. I know that it will start to rot after a while if you leave it soaking: smells horrid and becomes useless for fiber. But I don't know what the best balance of soaking time versus strength is. My suggestion is to go for one or two days of soaking (it's still slightly tacky after 1 day, better for thigh-twisting than leaving it for 2 days), and then dry it if you're not going to make cord immediately. Soak it again when you're ready to process to cord.

Pine cord is kind of a pain in the butt apparently. I guess it makes sense that it wants to be wet whenever you're working it, after all it's wet when it's alive and part of the tree.