My first weaving day for 2015

I have decided to set a deadline for completing the series of five hieke.

I want to have them all completed before Matariki.  That means of course that I had better get myself moving because June will be here before we know it.
Although today was my first day where I was able to focus on my weaving, I didn’t actually get to weave anything.
It always starts with preparation and having all your materials ready so that when you do sit down to weave, everything is at hand and you don’t have to stop and make a few more hukahuka or aho.

Today I started experimenting with different ways of preparing whenu for the next hieke.
I was also trying out different materials including cotton and harakeke.

With some help, because it needs two people to operate, I tried using a ‘rope making machine’.  Looking at the illustrations of the threads made for use in macrame , I thought this could give a new twist to preparing cotton whenu.  My conclusion is that it may, but I think it is easier to miro harakeke.

I am sure I read somewhere in the book ‘Traditional Maori Clothing’ by S.M. Mead published in 1969  that no substitute for the traditional method of preparing the fiber had been found.  I think the same holds true for today.

I tried to miro some of the fiber that I have from the Foxton Flax Stripping Museum.
That was a messy process and although it worked ok, the end result was not the look I wanted.

So it was back to the drawing board and another re-think.

I have finally decided that what I want to do is construct all five hieke in the same way.
The difference will be in the hukahuka and embellishments that I use to depict the different elements.

So the rest of the afternoon was spent measuring and cutting the same cotton whenu as I have used in the three completed hieke.