Straw stars
StrohsterneCraft
Straw stars are flat stars of split, ironed straw bound with thread, and they suit anyone who wants a decoration they can make at a kitchen table in an evening. Their history is thin: no museum source ties them to one maker or region, so treat any shop's founding story with care.
A straw star starts as stalks soaked in lukewarm water, slit open and ironed flat until they turn gold or brown. You cut the strips to equal lengths, lay them in crosses and stack the crosses offset from one another, then weave a thread over and under the strips to hold them before you pull it tight and knot it. The ends get trimmed square or to a point, as you like.
The German Wikipedia's sources put the decoration in the late 19th century, when the straw trade looked for winter work after the summer hat season and turned leftover straw into ornaments. Home workers in eastern Germany made them for decades, and that income went once cheap stars arrived from China, according to the Berliner Zeitung. A legend about a shepherdess who saw the Star of Bethlehem from her straw sack gets told as the origin, and nobody dates it.
People read the straw as the manger and the shape as the Star of Bethlehem. The stars go on trees and in windows, and onto Advent wreaths and bouquets. A plain straw star with eight or more points belongs to everyone, and a design in a named maker's style is that maker's work.
Worth knowing
- Buy straw that is already split and flattened if you want to make stars at home, and soak it in warm water before you start so it bends without cracking as you weave the thread.
- Start with two crosses of two strips each, set at 45 degrees to each other, for an eight-pointed star. A third cross laid between them gives you twelve points.
Quick answers about Straw stars
How do you make a straw star?
Soak straw in lukewarm water, slit and iron it flat, cut it into equal strips, lay the strips in offset crosses and bind them with thread woven over and under each strip. Trim the ends to points once the thread is knotted tight.
Where do straw stars come from?
Straw stars have no documented single origin. German sources date them as a Christmas decoration to the late 19th century, when the straw trade made ornaments from leftover straw in winter.