Category: Craft

  • Open studio weekend in Greymouth

    This weekend it has been the first Open Studios in Māwhera/ Greymouth. Organised by the Left Bank Art Gallery, the Open Studios has seen visitors travelling around the district to visit artists and craftspeople in their workplaces. Yesterday, Saturday, the textile studio saw forty people through the doors. Many were local but a few were…

  • Winter knits by Jenny Kee

    A new book of fabulous winter knits by the Australian designer, Jenny Kee, has just been added to the library. Jenny Kee started working in the 1960s in Australia before moving over to London where she worked with Vern Lambert at Chelsea Antique Market. Here she developed an interest in vintage and antique clothing, and…

  • 19 Princelet Street

    A house at 19 Princelet Street in East London in England is now a museum but once it was a refuge for immigrants. This charming and poignant animation tells the story of its 300 years of habitation by tailors, lace-makers and weavers.

  • How New Zealand flax changed the world

    New Zealand flax is a tough plant from the lily family. It is completely unrelated to true flax, Linum usitatissimum, from which linen is made, but the plants, unique to Aotearoa New Zealand and, it is said, Norfolk Island, yield tough fibres that resemble linen flax, hence the sobriquet. The NZ plant has an astonishingly…

  • India’s deaf-run lifestyle brand

    There are 18 million deaf people who live in India so Smitri decided to do something about it. Coming from a family where hearing impairment affected her older siblings, Smitri became fluent in sign language and was the youngest news anchor for the deaf community. At the age of 23, she began Atulyakala, a company…

  • The emotional pull of British Quilts

    The history of textiles is chequered and long, and deserving of study and appreciation. Deborah McGuire has an ongoing PhD research project that uncovers the life and loves of the British Quilt. An historian, writer, hand-quilter and teacher, McGuire is based in London at the College of Fashion, and she researches and writes about the…

  • The Web and its Chief Spider

    Recently two sets of booklets, all neatly filed in their own green leatherette-covered folder, have been donated to the studio library. The Web was a “Magazine registered art Post Office Headquarters, Wellington, in the 1980s and was issued once a quarter by the New Zealand Spinning, Weaving and Wool-crafts Society Inc. Founded by Eric Powdrell,…

  • Holi 2025

    This week was the annual Hindu celebration of colour in India: Holi. The festival rejoices in the return of Spring to the north and brings people together to celebrate the triumph of good over evil, life over death, and happiness over sadness. You can read more about Holi here and, if you happen to have…

  • Modern Daily Knitting

    Thanks to a reader who sent in this link about a podcast on the Haptic and Hue channel, if you enjoy knitting this is the website for you!

  • This week’s Spotify playlist

    As usual, this week there is a soundtrack to go with the blog and readers can listen to it by clicking the player above or by searching for the playlist on Spotify. The tracks are related in some way to the entries on the blog, although it might not be obvious what the relationship is.…