This eye-catching pattern belongs to a well-worn basket (kete whakairo) that a participant brought to a two-day weaving workshop at Waikawa marae (raranga wananga noho marae), which I was invited to tutor at recently. What particularly struck me is its vivid three-dimensional effect, which is hard to fully appreciate unless the kete is seen in the flesh, so to speak. I also like the way the pattern can be seen as either a checkerboard of vertical squares or as a checkerboard of diagonal squares. It’s woven in blocks of one-under, one-over (takitahi), interspersed with blocks of strips woven in longer weaves. The tightly woven blocks keep the weaving very even and the old kete still has a good shape. If you’d like to try it out, it’s pattern #76 in Mick Pendergrast’s book, Raranga Whaikaro.

Weaving workshops can be learning experiences for everyone involved, including the tutor and it’s always good to pick up new weaving tips and see what people have made. This workshop included Māori language (te reo) and songs (waiata) as well as weaving, which is why I’ve included some Māori words in this blog post.

Marama, an experienced weaver, brought along some of the kete whakairo she has woven recently, as well as a baby carrier (wahakura). She mentioned that there were a couple of things she would do differently next time she wove a wahakura. Firstly, this carrier wasn’t quite wide enough for a baby, so to make it wider she would add more strips into each starting plait. The other tip she gave is to use a really strong flax for the wahakura as ordinary flax isn’t strong enough to give structure to the sides and hold them upright. Instructions on how to weave a wakakura are online in a PDF file and for more weaving tips check out Rita Baker’s YouTube video.

A striking and well-made sculptural piece brought along by Helen was the result of weaving a corner in a different way. Helen had started to weave a kete but instead of crossing two strips to start the corner, she took them out to each side. This inspired her to weave the bird instead and the outwards turn became the start of wings. Using a combination of her sculptural and weaving skills, Helen ended up with this magnificent bird (kāhu). It wasn’t what she started out to weave but it turned out to be a unique piece of weaving.

One of the projects that the weavers are working on for the marae is a mat (whāriki) with flat joins. The flat joins are important as the mat will form the ceremonial base on which to rest a coffin at a tangi. The usual method of joining weaving using a plait wasn’t suitable as it is too bulky. The method they were using to make the flat join is the one shown on page 151 in Peter Buck’s book The coming of the Māori, where the new and old strips are worked together as one and then the old strips are turned back and woven back down to lock them into place.

Several weavers decided to make ketes using the whitebait (Koeaea) pattern which requires a plaited base to set the pattern (whakapapa). As I watched one of the weavers, Helen, preparing her strips, I noticed she used an extra step to prepare the fibre (muka) ends that I hadn’t encountered before. She made a cut half way through the thickness of the leaf where the fibre end would usually start in the traditional method of preparing fibre ends. She then folded the shiny side of the strip down, at the cut, onto the shiny side of the leaf, held the strip very tightly at this point and pulled the strip down sharply as usual. The cut helped to release the muka from the outer green of the leaf although some fibre ends may still need some scraping to remove any excess green outer leaf that remains.

During the weekend, people wove flowers (putiputi) using my book as a guide, large containers (waikawa), small baskets (kono), including those with flaps, baskets with plaited tops, a three-cornered basket, wristbands, balls and rope. The young boys (tamariki tāne) learned to plait for the first time and made a plaited rope (whiri kawe) with shredded flax. At the other end of the scale, Peter, an experienced stone carver, was making a fine rounded four plait rope (tōpuku) to use for carrying fine stone vessels.

I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend with the people of Waikawa marae. Their hospitality was welcoming and their enthusiasm for weaving was exciting. It was a large group with weavers of varying abilities which brought a vitality to the group and a buzz of conversation as people helped each other. Waikawa marae plans to have another raranga wananga in 2013 and to continue with regular weaving sessions.

© Alison Marion Brown 2012.

Creative Fibre — once known as the New Zealand Spinning, Weaving & Woolcrafts Society — seems to be evolving from a focus on traditional woven woolcrafts to encompass flax, felt, free-form designs and any and every use of fibre for creative purposes. Last year’s Creative Fibre diary featured a basket of my flax flowers on its cover and this year I was invited to give two demonstrations of flax basket-weaving at the Creative Fibre Festival in Marlborough. It was my first visit to a Creative Fibre Festival, and the whole festival gave off a feeling of creative energy. As I listened to the presenters, I automatically thought of the way the ideas they applied to other fibres could be transferred to the process of flax weaving.

The key guest presenter, Kim Thitichai from the UK, a delightful, energetic speaker, works with heat tools on materials that are heat distressable. Heat stressing doesn’t readily transfer to flax weaving but the key for me in her presentation on design was her discussion about “engaging directly with the materials”.Sometimes, no matter how well we plan things when working creatively, the process doesn’t go according to the plan. The materials themselves can dictate the way the project ends up and — if one goes with the flow — the results can be innovative and dramatic. I find myself regularly using this technique when I’m designing though I generally call it playing. A good example of this is the flaxwork Wave pictured above, which I created for an exhibition in the seaside town of Lyttelton. It’s made from a flat woven square of multi-coloured blue flax strips, and although I wasn’t at all sure how it was going to end up, it does seem to capture a sense of the shape and motion of a wave.

A World of Wearable Arts award winner, Sarah Hornibrooke from Golden Bay, who regularly uses flax in the creations that she enters in the competition, gave some tips for those wishing to enter it. Sarah advises that the garment must be well-made as it is worn in a number of shows and it needs to stay together, as well as being reasonably easy to get on and off. The garment should look good close up and at a distance as the garments are closely scrutinised by the judges, but it also needs to have impact when are worn during the show. Often the winner is a very simple idea. It’s also helpful for the garment to have a catchy name. Deb Price, who often works with Sarah on entries, was the Montana Supreme Award Winner in 1995 with an twined-flax creation, Moko. One of Deb’s twined pots is pictured above.

Flax featured in Heather Baskiville-Robinson’s presentation on making paper. Heather took us through the process of making flax paper, and we watched Canadian paper-maker Helen Heibert’s time-lapse DVD on the way that some materials can be their own creators as they change shape over time, a property that Helen specifically exploits in her creations. This has a parallel in flax weaving where two properties of flax have been exploited to make a skirt, or puipui. Firstly, flax strips curl up into cylinders when they dry, a property which is used in puipui-making to make the long rustling skirt of the puipui. Secondly, the fibres inside the flax take a dye more readily than the leaf itself and this property is exploited to make the geometrical patterns on the garments.

Flax is an ideal material to be creative with, as it is pliable and sculptural while green but hardens to retain shape as it dries. It also has a strong fibre and it dyes well. Traditional weaving techniques can be used to make something a bit out of the ordinary, like this three-cornered Wind-blown kete.

Why not think about using flax creatively to enter the Creative Fibre competitions for next year. The Far North Award, sponsored by Te Wananga O Aotearoa, of $750 and a Whaka Huia for the most creative use of New Zealand design or materials seems like a particulalrly appropriate category for flax weaving. This year’s winner for the Award is Donna Hitchcox of Timaru with her entry Tuatara Wisdom. It would be great to see flax featuring to a greater degree in this competition as well as in the Wearable Arts Awards. If you have used flax in entries for either of these awards, or any other awards, do send me a photo.

© Alison Marion Brown 2012.

Flax leaves are a popular and versatile addition to floral arrangements, irrespective of whether the flowers are picked from the garden or are woven from flax itself. Modern hybrid flaxes come in a variety of different colourings and are often used by florists in commercial floral displays. Flax can be dried into long thin rods and used to give height to a display, it can be netted to give a lacy effect in a display or it can be woven to make a foliage design rather than a flower. It can also be shredded into long strips and used to add a sense of movement to a display.

Shredded flax adds a light and airy dimension. It’s simple, easy, takes very little time to prepare, and can add a variety of interesting shapes and movements to a display. The thin mid-rib piece of flax that is stripped off a leaf before weaving can be used for shredding. It’s ideal for this purpose as one end is the hard base of the leaf, which makes a strong stem. It’s also a way of using up pieces of flax that are usually seen as waste. Shred the flax with a strong dog comb or one of those spikey florist’s bases that is used in the bottom of vases to hold stalks in place.

Take the mid-rib piece and shred the flax from where the flax joins together down to the tip of the flax. Run the comb along the flax piece several times until it is evenly and reasonably finely shredded. This can be added to an arrangement as it is, or it can be dyed to give some colour and movement to an arrangement, as illustrated in the flax flower arrangement here.

Another way of using shredded flax is as a tight circlet or as softer flowing curls, as illustrated in the bouquet at the top of this post. To make the tight circlet, smooth the shreds together so they become a smooth rope and then wrap them around your fingers so they make a ring. Keep wrapping until all of the flax rope is wrapped into the ring. Tie the ring of flax in place around the stem with a fine piece of flax to make a circlet or circlets for a display, or hold the wrapped circle in place with the tie or a peg until it dries and then it tease it out until it falls in soft ringlets or waves.

Florists often use the coloured variegated flax for foliage but green flax can be just as decorative. If it is featured as a straight leaf, it can give a strong structural quality to a display. By contrast, if it is curled around, it can give a soft, voluptuous quality. Flax foliage is particularly popular in Ikebana arrangements but it suits all kinds of displays. There are many ways flax can be used in floral arrangements, and some additional ideas on using flax as foliage can be found in my book. If you have any other ideas for using flax as foliage, do send me images of them to share on this blog post.

© Alison Marion Brown 2012.