Category: Music

  • Baye Fall – patchwork in a Muslim community

    The Baye Fall, Senegalese Muslims, believe that hard work and service to their communities expressed their faith, but their clothes honour the founder of the movement. In the 19th Century Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba established the Mouride brotherhood, an offshoot of Sufi Islam, in Senegal. It is believed that Ibrahima Fall, the founder of Baye Fall,…

  • Spotify this week

    Each week the blog features a curated playlist of audio on Spotify, the streaming platform. The playlist is related to the articles on the blog. To listen, click on the Player above or head over to Spotify where you can search for “Music to read a blog by”. The lists appear with a date after…

  • Textile song, work and memory

    Weaving has been associated with music and rhythm for centuries, a strong connection that helps guide the weaving itself and also makes evident the links between personal practice and growth in the Indian Subcontinent. From mystics, who use weaving as metaphors in verse for Buddhist philosophy, to women who gather together to spin cotton while…

  • The Spotify playlist

    In this, the first of the playlists for 2025, a selection of audio pieces has been collected to go along with the blog. To listen, click on the player above or head over to Spotify and search for “Music to read a blog by”. Paying subscribers to the platform will hear all the audio without…

  • Janet Frame House

    56 Eden Street, Oamaru, was once the home of Janet Frame, the famous New Zealand author. The Janet Frame House has been restored and is opened in the summer months for visitors to experience. It is a pretty, uncomplicated building, filled with charm and crocheted bedspreads and rag rugs, a sewing machine and a typewriter,…

  • Happy New Year

    Welcome blog friends, old and new. I hope you have had a good festive season, wherever you are and whatever you did. This year we are going to be opening the new textile studio in Greymouth Māwhera, and starting our workshops. The weaving equipment from the UK will be arriving in Aotearoa New Zealand in…

  • The last blog for the year

    Hello, dear readers, It is the end of another year and the last posting for 2024. What a year it has been. We have been lucky enough to travel and also fortunate enough to have stayed home. It has been a year of creativity, a new studio space, singing in waiata groups and with choirs,…

  • The Spotify playlist

    This week’s Spotify playlist features, as always, audio that relates to the articles on the blog. In addition there are some extras, it being the festive season for many across the world. To listen to the playlist click on the player above or go to Spotify on the Web or in the app and search…

  • Shooting fashion in a slum

    In November this year, an NGO in India released an Instagram video of a fashion shoot with a difference. For 41% of India’s urban population “home” is a slum. (A slum is defined by the World Bank as a group of individual people who live under one roof and lack one or more of the…

  • Waving at fairies

    At this time of year when magical things happen for many people across the globe, what could be more apt than this…? https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1037478179768402 or this…?