My witch's broom

My besom

A witch's broom

A partially made witch's broom from a carved staff, sticks, and palm leaves.

My witch's broom. It started as The Twisted Sisters, which had some halloween vibes put onto it, and was all cool and stuff, but... oh my GOODNESS is it inconvenient! I mean those branches sticking out, they look awesome, it wouldn't even look right without them, but WOW was it getting in the way! And FRAGILE. So after years of it sitting sitting with the other staves, forever making everything inaccessible, staves getting caught behind it, around it, those branches just *forever* being in the way. And I frustrated around it, until one day, someone in one of my online groups mentioned making a besom. And over the past, others have done so, and it was all awesome and stuff. And one day after it stuck in my craw one too many times, I decided, the best way to solve this was to turn The Twisted Sisters, which had been my default witch's broom because of the branches anyway, into a full besom. The bristles would protect the fragile head, bulk up the head around the branches in general to keep it from snagging on everything, and I could hang it on the wall to keep it out of the way in general, until actually using it for witchy purposes, like sweeping out the bad energy and such, also maybe sweeping in general.

So, to fill it with good energy from the start, I went on a walk around to look for the leaves from the cabbage palm trees around England. There's some sticks in there too, roots, even some grass straw. I found my way to a large foresty area and spoke with the forest Spirits there, and was offered specific branches and sticks and such, which found their way into the first layer or so of the broom. Also a crow feather, since I wear a crow pendant around my neck. And the palm fronds (more technically I suppose palm leaves, since this particular type of palm has long individual leaves rather than the fan style, which are also around, but wouldn't make as good of broom bristles, but I digress), those have more or less been somewhere nearby to where I live every since my first time even meeting Abby in London, so it seemed fitting to use that as the majority of the besom bristles. Also, they would make for a fairly nice sweeping broom as a whole.

And so with supplies gathered, we used some elastics to get our first layer of leaves wrapped around the staff (also where most of the branches, twigs, and feather are), and conveniently the leaves are able to bend over the elastic without breaking, so that I could cover the elastic with an elegant folded band of leaves. We then did the same to add our second layer of leaves over and slightly below the first, making for an elegant widening of the broom. I mean, the stave's branches are still gonna stick out, but it'll be a LOT better. And it can always be reverted to The Twisted Sisters down the road if I wish, and just remake my besom. But we'll give this thing several more layers of bristles to at least get a lot closer. I set the first layer to about the middle point of the grip, since I pictured that just looking the best, with that bit of swirly carving leading to the broom head, but not too much.

And at this point, mid July when this began, I've now gathered all of the palm leaves in my surrounding area, and must wait for more to fall throughout the autumn.

--More to be added when more leaves are obtained.

Stage 1 made July 16, 2025, Stage 2 July xx, Finished Month xx

The head of The Twisted Sisters, which at this point has a splash of blood looking paint on it, a halloweeny touch. But those branches, sticking out from all sides about 3 inches apiece, were just too inconvenient to work around. And so, my default witch's broom would become a more darling, more traditional looking broom.

The beginning stages, the head of the staff surrounded by dry light brown palm leaves, several feet long, thin, but durable and very much broom like. The heads of all of the leaves, where they fell from the tree, are all sticking out about 3 inches from an elastic holding them all to the staff, covering about half of where the handle grip once was.

The first two layers of leaves being attached, and tied with white string tightly over the folded second layer of leaves, which are set about an inch and a half below the folded band of the first layer.

The broom being held up to show what was once the grip and part of the lower part the staff, and the entirety of the broom head, which is still somewhat thin after having been tied tight at the top, and bundled close with a green pipe cleaner wire lower down.