Making Palm Crosses: From One Generation to Another
Gayle Franck
Years ago, Christine Qweder’s Mexican grandmother taught her the art of weaving a
palm leaf into a cross for Easter. Last spring, Christine taught her own 14-year-old
daughter, Selena, and I was fortunate enough to learn alongside her.
Christine, Selena and I became good friends when my daughter married Christine’s
oldest boy a few years ago. Selena has since finished her Confirmation classes at our
home church, Evangelical Covenant of Batavia, Illinois. I was fascinated by Christine’s
little palm crosses each Easter and was curious about this process of palm weaving. I
had a bowl from Hawaii woven of palm leaves but had never seen a woven cross. That
is, before I met the Qweders. We decided to meet in my dining room on Palm Sunday,
2009, after church services.
I had asked our church office manager for the large palm frond which had been placed in
the narthex. In previous years I had simply gathered the few stray palm leaves left by
parishoners to take to Christine for weaving, but now we had many more leaves to work
with so we could share the crosses with family and friends.
An Afternoon of Memories
As Christine, Selena and I worked on our weaving, we spoke of family gatherings and
traditions. My mother-in-law, a Catholic, always kept a palm leaf displayed in their home,
often over a crucifix or doorway. The fragrance of these fresh palm leaves brought back
even more memories for Christine as she recalled time spent with her grandmother. I
was looking forward to putting a woven cross on my dining room wall for our Easter
gathering next week, and Christine and Selena planned to distribute crosses to relatives
at a family get-together the following Saturday. I asked my husband, Joe, to photograph
each step of the weaving so I would have a record to follow the next time.
Start Quickly
The palm leaves dry out quickly once they are separated from the frond, and the drier
they become the more difficult it will be to weave them. At first the leaves are a beautiful
shade of medium green, but they dry to a light tan color.
1 - Hold Tight
Firmly grasp the upper third of the leaf
between your thumb and forefinger, and
fold the tip down to meet your grip (1). The
size of the cross will depend on how long
the folded tip will be: if you grasp only the
upper fourth of the leaf and fold, the cross
will be tiny, with a long “tail” you must
manipulate to continue the weaving.
2 - Fold Up
Fold the bottom two-thirds up to meet your
grasp. Now you have a length of leaf to form
(a “tail”) the center of the cross. Sharply
crease, (2), firmly holding the creased edge
at an angle, and manipulate a horizontal
crosspiece to form two sides of equal length
(3). It doesn’t matter if you fold the
crosspiece around the back to the opposite
side, or work from the front.
3 - Begin Weaving
The center of the cross will be the point where subsequent folding will occur, as the “tail”
is woven diagonally much as you would sew a 4-hole button, with the thread showing as
an “x” shape in the middle (4). Don’t worry about perfection or symmetry, because the
leaf doesn’t always cooperate! You may need to pull, coax and tug the weaving a little to
get a good cross shape.
4 - Finish it Off
When you are left with the thin, dry end, slip it underneath your weaving wherever it fits,
front or back (5). Selena finished hers off face-up, and Christine wove hers back-up(6).
The finished product looked equally charming. The cross dries gradually from green to
tan.
5 - Sharing
The total frond(7) yielded over sixty crosses,
which we shared with our church
congregation and our families for Easter.
Christine’s other children wanted to learn the art
of weaving palm crosses when they gathered
later that week, and another family tradition is
now passed on to the next generation.