Broom Making Workshop!

Published by Melissa Jackson on

Six hand brooms laid out on a table. Four have woven stalk handles, and two are just wrapped. Two have stitching to spread them out.

At our September 2026 meeting Susan Crenshaw presented a demonstration on how to make Broomcorn brooms!

Susan began making broomcorn brooms after discovering a class in Clifton Forge, Virginia, taught by an Appalachian craftsman. She quickly fell in love with the traditional craft and took a refresher class in mid-2025 to build her skills. She enjoys selecting, sanding, and oiling broomsticks, but wrapping each broom is her favorite part—she cannot stop until it is finished, which means she has no unfinished brooms (projects) laying around. Susan values working with natural materials, preserving Appalachian tradition, and creating useful, beautiful objects. In the future, she hopes to learn advanced weaving, braiding, and ways to incorporate colored broomcorn and other creative elements.

An older woman with short grey hair (Susan Crenshaw) is clamping the end of a broom with a wooden clamp to spread it out for sewing.
Susan Crenshaw demonstrating the clamp for how to spread the broomcorn out in order to sew it for a wider broom.
An older woman with short grey hair (Susan Crenshaw) sits in a chair preparing to start wrapping a broom. She holds a bundle of broomcorn in her right hand, he left is holding thread from the spindle. Her feet are braced on the two blocks of the spindle on the floor.
Getting started wrapping the broom

Top to bottom: three hand made cobweb brooms (long thin brooms for cleaning high corners), four broomsticks without straw yet, and two hand made broom spindles, one loaded with green thread, the other with orange.
Cobweb brooms, broomsticks, and spindles
Left to right: the broomsticks, two broom spindles, a sheaf of tampico fiber, and three bundles of hurl.
Spindles, tampico fiber, and sorted and unsorted hurl.
Left to right: three bundles of hurl, a basket of cut broom stalks, and two bunches of raw broomcorn.
Hurl, stalks, and broomcorn from the sorghum plant.

An angel wing style hand broom wrapped with orange brown thread.
Angel wing broom
A hand broom with a woven stalk handle. It has a line of dark green thread keeping the corn spread.
Woven handle hand broom.
The cut end of a hand broom showing the tightly packed broomcorn.
Cut end of a hand broom
A turkey wing style hand broom made of tampico fiber and wrapped in orange brown thread.
Turkey wing tampico hand broom. This was very soft like a brush.

And here is the demo broom complete!

The completed demo hand broom. It is a turkey wing style made of broomcorn, wrapped in green thread with a woven stalk handle.
The hand broom made in the demonstration
The completed demo hand broom. It is a turkey wing style made of broomcorn, wrapped in green thread with a woven stalk handle.
Completed demo broom
Close up of the woven handle of the completed demo hand broom.
Demo broom handle
Close up of the woven handle of the completed demo hand broom.
Demo broom handle
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