Practice? I toss my sheaf over the street light in front of the house.

Not to disagree with the idea of buying burlap cloth from a fabric store but I just use burlap sacks when making a sheaf. Keeping a pillow case in mind, the best thing to do is to turn the sack inside out and expose the seams. The fold the sack back on itself so that you have a double thickness bag. I then stitch the loose end to the already sown end at the bottom. Depending on how heavy the bag is to be, I will cut one side of the assembly off and stitch those edges together. At this point, I have sort of an inside out pillowcase.

Before going any further, turn the bag right side out. Now stuff the bag. I think cutting the twine into shorter lengths is a good idea as it tends to conform more to the shape of the bag as you stuff it into place, but that is a lot more work.

When the stuffing is complete and the bag is at the target weight, fold the remaining open end of the bag back inside and stitch it as tightly as you can.

BTW, I use a special needle that's called a "sack needle". It's got a large eyelet but a very blunt tip. 48 lb hemp twine is good for the stitching and I use a blanket stitch as it tends to self lock a bit.

That's the easy way of doing the sheaf. The one below is made by a more complicated method but seems to hold it's shape much better.



If you are so inclined, stencil your favorite Scottish icon to the outside of the bag. I like the St Andrew's Cross on one side and the Lion Rampant on the other.