Flax weaving

This Saturday I did a workshop “Flax weaving” organized by work and led by the Swiss woman Katarina who also leads the Waiata singing group. Her late husband was Maori, I suppose that is where she picked up all her wonderful Maori skills.

NZ Flax is no European flax, it is a different species of a different genus and the vegetation-dispersal interested people can discuss among themselves whether they are endemic through vicariance or dispersal. (sorry, this is an inside joke. At least one blog reader knows I’m talking to her)

It was a bit tough, taking the bus to work on a Saturday morning, but I reminded myself of cycling to “work” in Freiburg on the weekend as well when we would go to the market. So nothing new really.

At work we gathered in the big meeting room and had a coffee/tea waiting for everyone to arrive. “BANG-WOBBLE” another earthquake, just a small one. You can totally feel/hear how near-far they are: a quake within 5 km starts with this loud BANG or WHAM, when they are further away things start shaking more gradually. Who would have thought we would all become total earthquake connoisseurs.

We made a big basket that was relatively easy because we used the whole leaves of the flax rather than the fibers only which takes a lot of preparation. It was hard because the big leaves don’t really let themselves be woven easily. Also I made a mistake all the way at the beginning and although I noticed it and corrected it, it was still not quite the way it should be and so I ended up with a “never-ending” basket. That sounds good, especially if it has a never-ending supply of potatoes or such, but it basically meant that I could not tie up all the ends perfectly because they didn’t line up the way they should. Oh well. Luckily I’m no perfectionist.

The base of the basket, out- and inside

As you can sort of see we clipped the loose ends during weaving with clothes pegs. "Listen" to this conversation between Katarina with her Swiss-Kiwi accent, and American Anna:
Katarina, explaining how to proceed: "This is whire you will need thi pigs"
Anna: "PIGS???"
Katarina: "Yih, rimimbir I wrote you would need some pigs?"
Anna: "eehm ... ehm ... eeeeh ...."
Katarina: "Pigs, you know, clothes pigs"
Anna: "Aah! clothes pegs!"
Katarina: "ach ja, pEgs pEgs, Kiwis say pIgs..."

We had “bring-a-plate-to-share” lunch together and that was a bit weird. One third of the ladies was rather fat and on a diet and so they didn’t eat anything at all. Not even a bite of apple. Another third was very skinny and clearly intending to keep it just like that, and so they only ate 2 rice crackers and a little carrot. And then there were a few normal eaters that were a bit shy with all the dieting going on, and me. Me, I was starving and I felt as if I ate more by myself than all the others together. I felt a bit silly as I kept eating and trying all the different little pies and muffins and the cheese and eggs and fruit and veges with dip and the pita bread with humus, and a second serving of pie and half of the fruit on the plate and then some more. But I was also determined not to be influenced by this strange diet. Weird, I’ve never seen anything like this, so many women on a diet in the same group and then such a strange diet of not eating any lunch at all.

After lunch we went out and collected some more flax from our collection that grows out on the fields.

Then some people made another basket and some learned to make decorative flowers. I felt like one basket was enough and it needed some distraction from the never-ending-thing and some other asymmetry.

The roses were sooo easy and absolutely magical!

Then Katarina showed me another type of flower, and she suggested it would be nice to combine two differently coloured leaves, but I choose way too big leaves and so I wove and wove and wove but I never reached the flower state,

so I decided it would be more fun to turn it into a mat that I could use as a table mat for a pan or so. It is not perfect either, but it was fun.

All in all it was a fantastic experience and so much fun. I even caught myself thinking “Wouldn’t it be fun to do this all year long???” until I realized that would mean going back 300 years in time and living in a hut made of the same leaves, wearing clothes made of the fiber, raising 13 dirty kids in that hut, cooking birds and fish that my husband hunted with seaweed and sweet potatoes that I collected and never having enough time to weave all the baskets that we would need. So hmm, perhaps life as a scientists isn’t all that bad.

With that happy thought I drove the bus back home and showed the basket to the world on skype. And now it is here for you.