Category: Travel

  • Walking Two Worlds

    In these days of climate emergency, fashion can be a platform to raise awareness. Quannah Chasinghorse, an American supermodel who is from Oglala Lakota and Hän Gwich’in tribes, has been taking the fashion world by storm. With her distinctive looks and Yidįįłtoo tattoos, the model has been the face of campaigns from Ralph Lauren and…

  • Peter Collingwood in New Zealand

    In 1984, Peter Collingwood, the British weaver who was the first living craftsperson to have work exhibited in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, visited Auckland. The New Zealand Spinners, Weavers and Woolcraft Society toured a British Council exhibition of textile art that included the weaver’s work. The exhibition in Aotearoa included local weavers from Auckland,…

  • 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…

  • Natural colours

    To the first-time visitor New Zealand Aotearoa seems to offer little in the way of natural colour, especially in the heavily wooded South of Te Waipounamu/ The South Island. Green is the predominant hue. Many different shades and tones of green, but green nevertheless. However, there is plenty of colour around, and possibly none more…

  • The crocheted wharenui

    A few months back the blog featured Lissy Robinson-Cole and Rudi Robinson-Cole’s crocheted sculpture: Wharenui Harikoa. A wharenui is a large building for people to gather in and is usually on a marae. They are usually lavishly decorated with symbolic artworks and the various parts of the structure have particular relevance, which you can read…

  • Rata

    New Zealand’s native pōhutakawa is probably the best known of its trees, particularly because of its flowers of red that appear at Christmas. It has a relative, rata, that also flowers at the same time of year. Every few years the rata flowers in profusion, causing blots of red amongst the gentle hues of the…

  • Touring the South

    Over the Christmas period we took a tour of the South of the Te Waipounamu/ the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. The trip took in the West Coast route to Haast with an overnight stop in Ōkārito, another in Haast (specifically to have a fish lunch at Jackson Bay at the end of the…

  • 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,…