As flax weavers know, flax has tough fibres and a very high fibre content. Indeed, some of the traditional forms of Māori weaving involve stripping flax right down to the pure fibre. For paper making, it is the high fibre content that makes flax a particularly suitable raw material.

For the technically-minded, when paper is made with any sort of plant fibre, the fibres lock together in a process called hydrogen bonding. Plants rely on cellulose for the strength in their branches and leaves, and paper is essentially a network of cellulose fibres held together by these hydrogen bonds.

Making paper with flax follows the same basic process as hand-making any sort of paper, and there are plenty of instructions for paper-making on the internet, most of which use scrap commercial paper as the raw material for hand-made paper. If one uses plant leaves for all or part of the raw materials, they can generally be softened enough for the first step in making paper by cutting them into small pieces and boiling them in water for a couple of hours, but flax is so tough it needs an extra step.

To reduce the flax into small pieces, Mark bashes the flax leaves with a piece of wood to begin to split them apart and soften them (which is quicker than stripping them right down to the fibre). He then cuts the leaves crosswise with a Stanley knife, leaving pieces about 5 mm long. Another option can be found in Making paper in New Zealand, a book by May Davis, which contains clear, easy-to-follow instructions for making flax paper. May does not bash the flax and suggests removing the hard midrib of the flax leaf and cutting the leaves into 1 cm pieces with scissors. The extra step in making paper with flax involves using a solution of caustic soda in a stainless steel pot. (If the pot is aluminium, it will be eaten away by the caustic soda and will give off flammable hydrogen gas.) You can buy solid caustic soda from a hardware store or supermarket. Handle it carefully and make it up into a solution, using about half a cup of caustic soda for a large potful of water.

Place the flax pieces in an empty stainless steel pot, and then add enough caustic soda solution to cover them. Boil the pieces about 40 minutes to an hour until they change colour. Alternatively, you can soak the pieces for a few days without boiling. Rinse the caustic soda from the pulp in a sieve under cold running water. From here on, you can follow standard paper-making instructions. If you want your paper to have an even texture you will need to run the blender for several minutes for each blender load. If you want a rough look with visible pieces of flax, you can miss out the blending operation for a small proportion of the pulp, and/or include a few longer pieces when you initially cut the flax pieces.

For those who want to make paper in bulk, Mark has developed and manufactures the Hollander beater shown here, which he sells and exports at a fraction of the cost of other manufacturers of Hollanders. The Hollander takes the place of a blender and pulps the fibres rather than slicing them, which results in a higher quality paper-making pulp.

In the workshop, we made large sheets of flax paper and left them in the sun to dry completely before peeling them off the frame. The other workshop participants were artists making paper to paint on. For my part, I’m not sure what I’ll use the paper for and am still awaiting inspiration. Mainly, I participated in the workshops to learn more about another use for flax, and found Mark’s workshops enjoyable as well as informative.
 

© Alison Marion Brown 2011.

It’s important to note that netting flax with a pasta machine is a patented process, so if you want to sell flaxworks made from netted flax you will need to purchase the netted flax from Hapene, the holder of the patent. However, in my limited knowledge of patent law, I think it’s fine to net flax with a pasta machine for one’s own use, and also to provide instructions for netting flax. At least I’m assuming it’s OK to provide instructions, because I saw instructions for netting flax with a pasta machine in a magazine some years ago. If any readers of this blog post have more knowledge about patent law than I do, please take the time to comment on this blog post.

Participants in my flax weaving workshops have often asked me about netting flax, and a couple of commenters on my blog have also enquired about it. Netted flax is very attractive and is particularly popular for foliage in flower arrangements and bouquets. It also seemed ideal as a way of matching the feathers of a fantail.

The inspiration for designing and weaving the fantail resulted from my experience of the Christchurch earthquake in February, when life turned upside down. I was in my workplace on the fourth floor of a city-centre building when the earthquake struck. The building was badly damaged and has been inaccessible ever since. My home in Sumner was also badly damaged, is unliveable and needs to be demolished.

Two days after the earthquake, as I drove around the Sumner estuary, I noticed shags drying their wings as they always do on a rocky outcrop, and later — when I was staying with one of my sons in a rural cottage — a pair of fantails flitted and flirted around the place, bringing a sense of joy and peace. Seeing these birds living life normally and happily inspired me back into creativity and the flax fantail is the result. Thank you to all those people throughout New Zealand who sent aroha and good wishes, and offered accommodation and holidays after the earthquake. Your thoughts were very welcome and much appreciated.

© Alison Marion Brown 2011.

Hats are fun to decorate, and shells add a summery, seaside look to a hat. I found this broken shell on the beach at Ruby Bay, filled it with little flax flowers and attached it to the hat band. The natural bronze colour of the flax I used, which was growing by my camp site, happened to match the brown colour of the hat, although the colour will fade in time.

Adding natural objects to the rim of a bowl can create an interesting look. I found this smooth, twisted root on the beach and it was supple enough to wind around the top of a woven bowl. The top of the bowl was finished in a French plait, which leaves the ends of the plait straggling around the top on both the inside and outside of the bowl.

These ends are normally cut off. In this case, I cut off the outside ends and wove selected groups of four inside ends into four-plaits around the roots, which held them firmly in place at several spots around the rim. (If I had woven the outside ends into four-plaits, it would have distorted the rim of the bowl.)

I rather like smooth, curved driftwood pieces as handles for baskets. In the piece illustrated here, I wedged one end of the driftwood into the weaving to keep the handle upright and tied it on with fine plaits by drilling a small hole through each end of the handle and threading the plaits through the holes and then tying them though the weaving. This three-cornered basket, or waka kete, also features an oyster shell attached to a stone hanging on the side, as if it is an anchor.

Second edition of book

I have just released the second edition of my book, Weaving Flowers from New Zealand Flax. The new edition contains the same instructions as the first edition but also includes instructions for making a flax Pohutukawa, the flower of New Zealand’s Christmas tree. Real Pohutukawa flowers are stunning, but very delicate, and so not very practical for flower arrangements, but the flax version shown in this bouquet will last indefinitely. A variety of ideas for using the Pohutukawa are illustrated in the book, including instructions for making the hair decoration shown towards the bottom of Flax on the brain.

© Alison Marion Brown 2011.

This way of putting patterns into weaving is quite different from the traditional way patterns are woven in flax weaving. In the traditional way, the dyed strips are woven into the main body of the weaving, and the pattern is made by the way the strips are woven together. In patterned flax baskets, or kete whakairo, the plan for the pattern, or whakapapa, is set at the beginning of the weaving when the dyed strips are included into a plait at the bottom of the basket. This way of incorporating patterns into the weaving is an advanced weaving technique, and examples of kete whakairo can be found in museums around the world. I wove the black and white kete pictured above using a pattern from Mick Pendergrast’s book Raranga Whakairo listed on the Reviews page of my web site.

On another Christmas note, Phil — a customer who bought my book — sent me this photo of his wife Anne’s wreath, which is made from shredded flax and paua shell, and has three red woven flax flowers attached to the bottom of the wreath. I do like the way Anne has created the wreath, with a randomness in the use of the flax shreds but also structure in the shape, resulting a very attractive and original Christmas wreath. The New Zealand theme is further enhanced by the addition of pieces of paua shell attached randomly around the wreath. Instructions for making the woven flax flower that Anne has attached at the bottom of the wreath can be found here on my web site, and also in my book.

While internet searching I found another interesting woven wreath, which is based on the three-dimensional star shown on the right. The wreath is made by shaping a number of these stars together in a circle. I haven’t been able to contact the owner of the photo of the wreath, Elmer, for permission to use it in my blog, but you can see the wreath here. If you’d like to try making this wreath, I have instructions for the three-dimensional star on a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago.

Addition 16 April 2011
Te Rangi Hiroa mentions in his book, The coming of the Maori, that there are samples of historic weaving from the Chatham Islands and the Waitaki River area that have been woven with decorative strips overlaid on the foundation weaving. He concludes that “… overlaid plaiting was present in two marginal areas, which forms evidence that it was an earlier form of decoration which was supplanted in the North Island by the use of coloured foundation wefts.”

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

To make the handle, split the flax butt apart down the middle, separating the two parts of the leaf. If the butt end has been cut off the leaf, it may not be that easy to get started so use a knife or sharp object to separate the two sides of the butt apart. Once you’ve separated the sides, pull them completely apart. There may be a sticky gel inside the leaf, which is traditionally used as a skin-repair ointment or as a glue. You can wipe this off, but it will dry into a cellophane-like substance which is easy enough to pull off when it’s dry.

The next step is to bend the butt over and secure it in this shape while it dries. Before bending it over, scrape the side of the butt that will be the underneath side of the handle, as shown on the Preparing flax page. This will help to soften the butt and make it easier to bend. You can bend the butt either way but some of the harder, thicker butts may bend easier one way than the other. Try to bend the butt smoothly so that it doesn’t get sharp folds, as the one on the right has in the photo here. These folds are impossible to smooth out once the flax is creased. Put the bent butts inside a container that will hold them in shape, like the wide-mouthed jar I’ve used here, and leave to dry, or tape them into shape.

When the butt end is dry it is ready to be prepared for using as a handle. Trim the soft edges off and then split the butt into a width that seems suitable for your basket. I find that about half the width is a suitable size. The handle may be longer than you require, so hold the handle against your basket and measure the length that you need. The handle will need enough length to be able to be pushed in along the weaving at the side of your basket with about two centimetres more to fold back up to secure the handle from pulling out of the weaving.

Once you’ve cut the butt to the correct length, trim the ends into a point and then push them down through the weaving on each side of the basket. This can either be done on the inside of the basket, as in the photo on the left, or the outside of the basket as in the photo below — if it’s on the outside it can be turned into a decorative feature. Push each end down into the weaving about two centimeters longer than the final position and then bend the end back up.

Insert the point underneath the closest strip that it can go under and then pull the handle up so that the end fits snugly under the woven strip, as shown in the photo above. This will secure the handle in place and make sure it doesn’t pull out as the flax dries. Alternatively, split the pointed end of the handle into two and bend one point up one side and one point up the other side as shown in the photo on the right. If the handle is very dry, it may be necessary to moisten the end before you bend it up, otherwise it may split.

Using a hard but pliable material for a handle is a common way to make a handle in basket-making, although often the core material is covered with another material, like the handle on the willow basket pictured here. In this basket, the core is made from a thin bent willow branch, and this has been covered by winding finer willow branches around this core.

Although I think the flax butt handle is attractive as it is, with its subtle colouring and simplicity, it could also be covered and there are a variety of ways to do this. One way could be by making a patterned covering using the same technique that is used to make the wristband in the post Bands for the boys and girls. If this technique is used, it would be important to make sure that the pattern on the handle is integrated with the style and pattern of the basket, if it has one.

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

It was interesting to weave in Norfolk Island because there were new weaving materials with different properties to try. Even Norfolk Island Phormium tenax is quite different from the Phormium tenax flax we have in New Zealand. I found it to be much more like Phormium cookianum. The leaves are short, wide, soft and brittle, and have very little fibre content, although this didn’t greatly affect the workshops I took, as the pieces people were weaving didn’t require strong fibre. Although flax grows abundantly in Norfolk Island, it’s not generally used as a weaving material, as the traditional weaving is done with pandanus — a tradition that originated from the original Pitcairn Island settlers.

Kentia Palms also grow abundantly on Norfolk Island and so I was able to experience weaving with a palm leaf for the first time. I cut a complete leaf off a tree and then used one section with ten leaflets each side of the rib to weave a large two-cornered basket. The leaflets were soft and easy to weave, and are quite wide, and so it took only a few minutes to weave up both sides of the leaf, from the rib upwards, and then weave the corners and finish the top. I used some of the left-over ends coming out of the top to plait a handle up both sides. It’s easy to see why palm frond baskets are used in other islands in the Pacific for everyday use as it’s so quick and easy to weave a large basket.

I also wove a round bowl from a Kentia Palm leaf using a technique that I hadn’t tried before, which makes use of the leaflets being attached to both sides of the rib. I enjoyed weaving this bowl, and plan to try it in flax, by using the plaited base used to start a large kete to mimic the rib of the palm. Unfortunately I was unable to bring these articles through New Zealand Customs as they were still green. (They could have come through Customs if they’d had time to dry.)

Another weaving material that is traditional to Norfolk Island, and one I particularly liked because of its mottled brown markings, is rahooloo or banana bark. The bark is easily stripped off the trunk of the tree because the trunk tends to shed its bark anyway. Once the bark is stripped off it is plaited into long strips in preparation for weaving a hat or a basket. I wove a two-cornered basket which I was able to bring through New Zealand Customs as it was quite dry.

The Norfolk Island weavers also make use of packaging strapping to weave utility baskets, like the ones pictured here, woven by Wayne Boniface. These baskets are woven around a wooden form. The strips are nailed to the bottom of the form to hold them in place and then woven with a vertical/horizontal style of weaving. The handles are made with a four-plait cord, and the ends of the cords are woven into the body on the outside of the basket to create a decorative pattern. These baskets are for everyday use and are ideal when collecting shellfish, as the excess water can escape through the gaps between the waterproof strips.

If you are planning a trip to Norfolk Island and would like to meet some weavers, visit the Golden Orb Bookshop and Cafe on a Wednesday. There you’ll be able to see a group of weavers making traditional Norfolk Island hats and have the opportunity to purchase one for yourself.

The welcome and friendliness I received in Norfolk Island made tutoring the workshops very enjoyable as we all shared tips and ideas for weaving. Although pandanus will no doubt continue to be the most popular weaving material in Norfolk Island, I am hopeful that flax will start to be used a bit more as weavers become accustomed to the different weaving properties it has.

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

Using six strips opens up more possibilities for different patterns on the cord. The patterning on the cord will depend on which order the colours are hung together at the start and how many strips are used for each colour. The three patterns illustrated here are made as follows: the first sample is made using two green and one white strip on each side, (the white strips were the two strips in the middle), the second sample uses alternate green and white strips and the third one uses five green and one white strip. The same effect will be achieved no matter where the one different-coloured strip is put in the sequence in this pattern.

For the sample illustrations, I’ve used six different coloured flax strips to clearly show the plaiting of a rounded six-plait cord. The colours from left to right are pink, blue-green, white, lime-green, yellow and striped. A six-plait cord made from strips becomes rounded because the shiny side of each strip is kept to the outside of the cord all the time as you plait. Start with six flax strips all the same width.

As for any cord, it’s easier to get an even plait if you have one end of the work held by a friend or you tie the end around a solid object such as a chair leg or a nail in a piece of wood. This means you can pull the strands towards you as you plait, so you can keep an even tension on the plaiting. Here I’ve used a nail banged into a piece of wood. Arrange the strips so that the shiny side of each strip is showing uppermost. Start by crossing the left middle white strip over the right middle lime-green strip.

Now pick up the right-hand outside strip, the striped one, and keeping the shiny side of the flax showing, take it across to the left, under the yellow strip that’s next to it, and over the next white strip.

Go to the left-hand side, and keeping the shiny side of the flax showing, take the outside red strip to the right over the blue-green strip next to it, under the lime-green strip and then over the striped strip. This completes the starting sequence.

The next sequence of movements are the ones that are repeated to make the six-plait cord. Go to the left-hand side and take the blue-green strip back behind all the other strips, and then bring it around and to the front, keeping the shiny side on the outside all the time. Now take the blue-green strip over the yellow one, under the white one, and over the red one.

Go to the right side and, keeping the shiny side on the outside, take the yellow strip behind all the others, and then bring it around to the front. Now take it over the lime-green one, under the striped one and over the blue-green strip.

Go to the left side and, keeping the shiny side to the outside, take the lime-green strip around the back and bring to around to the front. Now take it over the white strip, under the red strip, and over the yellow strip.

Go to the right side and, keeping the shiny side to the top, take the white strip behind all the others and bring it around to the front. Then take it over the striped one, under the blue-green one and then over the lime-green strip. Repeat this sequence, remembering to alternate the sides that you pick up the strip to plait with. A way to make sure that you are choosing the right strip to start each plait with is to compare the outermost strips on each side. The strip that emerges from the side of the plait at the lowest point is the one to use. For example, in this photo here, it is the striped one on the left which is the one to plait with as it’s lower than the red one on the right.

As you plait, pull the strips up tightly together so that the cord becomes rounded and tightly plaited. I made this cord with six differently-coloured strips to make it easier to follow the instructions, but, as the photos at the top of this post show, it’s fun to use this plait to make differently patterned cords.

I found the instructions for the six-plait rounded cord in a leatherwork book written by Ron Edwards, the founder of the Australian Whipmakers and Plaiters Association. Ron wrote many books on leatherwork and some of the ideas and techniques are useable in flax weaving. You can find his books for sale at Rams Skull Press.

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

The origin of the bag is a mystery to me — I looked on the internet and through my books to see if I could see a similar one, but had no luck. The bag is woven with a soft natural material which appears to be flattened tubes so it’s likely to be a soft rush or reed. I had initially thought the bag may have been an Australian Aboriginal dilly bag, because of its shape, but I discovered dilly bags are usually made of twined fibres rather than woven strips. Because the bag has the appearance of being a traditional bag rather than a modern piece, and because the weaver has used several complex techniques, it indicates that the bag comes from a country that has an established weaving history.

I found the weaving at the top of the bag particularly interesting.The main body of the bag is woven diagonally, but the weaving changes to a vertical and horizontal weave which makes a straight edge around the top of the bag. After the completion of the top, the ends of the weaving strips exit the weaving at the base of the top, and are twisted along together to two points on each side, where they are plaited to make handles.

A simple one-over, one-under diagonal weave is used for the main body of the bag. However, a spiral pattern in the weave shows up when the weaving is seen from an angle. This spiral pattern is made by one strip being woven over two strips in a row, with this happening at the next point across in each consecutive row, thus making the spiral pattern. This change in the weave may also help to shape the bag.

The difference in the colours between the outside and the inside of the bag probably indicates that the bag has been used a lot. The colour on the outside of the bag is a faded mid-brown, but on the inside two colours are visible — a deep mid-brown and a dark rich brown — and these have been used to make a patterned design in the weave. Both shades appear to be the natural colours of the material, so maybe the material was treated in different ways, either with natural dyes or by another method, to achieve the differences in shade.

It’s difficult to work out how the base of the bag has been constructed, but it appears that all of the strips have been pulled and twisted together and then a plait has been woven around the strips to hold them in place. A single fine twisted cord also holds it all together. I have seen a somewhat similar type of finish on a jute string bag made in Bangladesh, but in that case the construction — where the threads are all pulled together around a circlet and then tied together in a large knot — is easier to see.

One of the things that I find particularly appealing about the bag is the effort that has been put into the detail. For example, the knotted ends of the handles. The handles of the bag are made by plaits coming from the body of the bag. Each handle is initially made with two plaits, which are joined together at the ends into one plait, as shown in the top photo. Instead of finishing this plait off with one large knot, it’s finished by separately twisting and knotting each one of the strands that was used to make the plait, which ends up as three small knots bunched together. This detail, combined with the skilled construction of the bag, make this bag a very fine example of the craft of weaving.

I enjoy studying weaving techniques from different weaving traditions as they often provide a wealth of ideas and information that can be incorporated into my own weaving. Sometimes it’s easy to work out the way an item has been woven and sometimes it’s not so easy, and it does help to know the origin of an item. Have you seen a bag like this? Do you know what country this style of bag comes from? I’d love to hear from anyone who can shed some light onto the origin of this bag.

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

The photos I’ve used on this blog post were sent to me by Lesley Jenkins and Wayne Boniface of Norfolk Island. These beautifully-woven and decorated hats are made in a traditional Norfolk Island weaving style. Norfolk Island doesn’t have much in the way of weaving material so the islanders use what they can, including banana tree bark, corn husk, drain flax (this is not Phormium tenax, it looks like bulrush to me), Moo-oo, or Cyperus Iucidus and palm leaf.

Lesley and Wayne use pandanas and Moo-oo which they gather from the cliffs around Norfolk Island. As with many plants used for weaving, Moo-oo has razor edges which are stripped off. It’s then left to dry out for about ten days before use. The traditional method is to plait the material into one long flat strip, which is then wound around and sewn into a hat shape. Lesley and Wayne have used a variety of different styles of flowers to decorate their hats in attractive ways.

Another email I received recently was from Greta Nicholson, who enlisted the help of her son to make a video that shows her way of making roses. Greta’s rose is made with one thin strip of flax which is folded in half and and then folded up concertina-like as if making a paper streamer. Greta calls this a small rose and says it’s best to make it with thin, soft flax. I suggest the flax is softened first before making this flower. I made the ones illustrated here with strips about 1.5 cm wide which I folded 10-12 times each way before pulling the soft strip through. Pull the strip through slowly and be careful as it reaches the top so that you don’t start pulling other side of the strip through. I agree with Greta that they can be a bit haphazard in appearance but they are easy and fun to make.

It’s very gratifying to hear that the book has inspired or reinvigorated people’s interest in weaving. Mina Timutimu of Whakatane writes:

I received your contact details from a colleague and have read your book hence the request to purchase same. We live in a remote rural area with access to flax of good quality because the community take good care of the resource and make sure that it is cleaned regularly. Your directions are easy to follow in fact the book is beautifully presented. As a result we have commenced weekly raranga (weaving) which have become very popular, not only with floral but incorporting kete, whariki, (mat), kete whakairo (intricate patterned kete) by experienced tutors.

It’s especially nice to hear that the book works for children and beginners as well as experienced weavers. Ruth from Cambridge writes: “… some of our 4 year olds (I work in an early childhood centre) can even follow the pictures,” and Bev from Opotiki mentions that … ” your diagrams are so great that she was making the flowers using diagrams only.”

Writing a book can be such a long-winded, solitary business that it’s great to get feedback, and all the positive feedback has inspired me to extend and update it at some point soonish. One of the additions will be a flax pohutukawa flower which I recently created for Miss World New Zealand 2009, Magdalena Schoeman, to wear in her hair in the Miss World Pageant in South Africa. It took a while to figure out how to make the pohutukawa and I don’t currently have written instructions for it, but it will certainly feature in the updated version of the book. I was notoriously wrong in my predictions about how long it would take to publish the first version of the book, so I’m not making any predictions about when the updated version will be published!

Addition 27 Jan 2010
I was delighted when Wayne offered to make one of his hats for me. The hat was delivered to me recently and fits perfectly. It’s beautifully made and I especially like the pretty edge on the brim of the hat. Thank you very much, Wayne!

© Alison Marion Brown 2010.

Start making the angel by shredding some flax with an animal comb or fork and tying a bundle of it with a strip of flax. Tie it with a double knot quite near the narrow ends of the shreds.

Pull some of the waste flax out of the comb you have used to shred the flax with, and roll it into a small ball.

Position the flax ball into the middle of the shredded flax just above where it has been tied. This is going to give some shape to the head. It’s quite tricky to keep this flax ball in place so you may find it’s a good idea to put some glue at several points around the circumference of the ball to hold the shredded flax in place as you continue to make the angel.

Tie another strip of flax at the top of the flax ball making sure that the flax shreds completely surround the flax ball.

At this point I dipped the long thin ends of the shreds, up to the top tie, into boiling yellow dye, as I wanted the angel to have golden curls, but this is not an essential step. I used Teri Golden Yellow dye, and, as I used a flax with quite a lot of white in the colouring, it only needed a brief dip in the dye.

Now plait the long thin ends that come out of the top of the head into long braids. Separate the fibres carefully and make sure you are using fibres that come from the same area of the head for each braid.

Shred a little bit more flax for the arms. Tie the shreds together in the middle to make a bundle and then slip this in between the shredded flax of the body. Push it up so that it’s right underneath the tie for the neck. Tie another piece of flax around the body below the arms to create a waist.

Now shred some more flax and divide it into two bundles. Drape one bundle over the right shoulder and bring it across the front of the body to the left. Drape the second bundle over the left shoulder and bring it across in front of the body to the right. Tie these in place around the waist with a wide strip of flax.

Bend the arms around to the front, tie a thin strip of flax around the flax at the right distance to make wrists for the arms and then cut off the ends of the flax, and shaping the ends into hands. Hold the hands together temporarily with a tie of flax so that as the flax dries, that arms stay in the bended shape.

Now make the wings. I’ve used a thin, soft variegated flax for the illustration here but the thinner flax tends to curl up too much as it dries so I suggest you use a thicker flax for this style of wings. Take a piece of a flax leaf and scrape a blunt knife along both sides to soften and dry it a little to prevent the wings from curling up. Fold the flax on an angle with the fold at the top and a piece of flax coming down at an angle on each side and cut these sides into wing shapes. Staple the pieces in place close to the fold. Split each wing into about five strips just a bit over halfway along the wing. Use fine scissors to round the end of each strip and then cut up the strip a bit to narrow it and to give a feathery effect.

Position the wings just at shoulder height on the angel and attach them with glue or double-sided tape or a staple. I used double-sided tape which I find holds the wings securely.

It’s now time to unplait the braids and let the angel’s hair down! Or you could leave the braids in place, for a more funky look for the angel. If you do this, I suggest you plait some more braids separately and then sew them onto the angel’s head as they could be a bit sparse otherwise.

To make the angel’s halo, take a thin strip of flax, about .5 cm wide and as long as you can get it without using the tough bit of the leaf. Soften it with a knife and then fold it at right angles in the middle of the strip. It’s easiest to do this on a flat surface to start with.

Take the end of the strip that is out to the left and fold it across to the right over the first fold.

Take the end of the strip that is pointing up to the top and fold it down over the strip pointing to the left, folding it neatly against the other strip.

Continue to fold the strips over each other like this, until you have used up all the length of the strip. Make sure you fold the each strip squarely and closely up against the last strip otherwise the halo will be a bit loose, which may not be appropriate for an angel!

Hold the ends closely so that the folded strips don’t come undone and then curl the strip into a circle. Attach the ends together so that the halo is the right size for the angel’s head.

Attach the halo to the back of the angel’s head with glue or double-sided tape. Trim the long hair and arrange it so that it sits prettily around the angel’s shoulders and your angel is completed.

I recently received a letter from Kathy of Takaka who writes “We had an excellent hui with the local primary school (40 kids) who loved making your angel. They all went home clutching their one, along with a poi and kowhaiwhai pattern they had coloured in. A happy and successful first visit to our marae for a lot of them.” It’s lovely to hear that people have enjoyed making the original angel and I hope you enjoy making this version. Do send me a photo if you have your own variations.

© Alison Marion Brown 2009.