Then I began to unbraid the strands of the stems just up to the ligatures.
Now I had a much finer handful of strands to surround my handle core. I tied this bundle up too, and carefully straightened the strands, minimizing the crossings. One thing that is NOT visible here is how I snugged the core up tight to the top of the handle. I took a couple strands and tied them around the bottom of the weight. When I pulled the strands tight, it drew the weight up very tightly to the top. I put a square knot in these strands and then draped the remaining ones along the length, just as you see here. The white threads are tight too. The core is pretty secure.
I rolled this core against the table to make it rounder. I actually put it on the floor and rolled it under my foot too, but no pictures of that. Since the core isn't round (it's a kind of figure eight in cross section, remember?) but it is filled with moveable material. This really smoooooths out the contour of the core/strands for a nice round handle.
Rolling...
