New Zealand -Day One

The drive from Wellington Airport to Paraparaumu where we are staying took about an hour, but was very scenic and interesting.

Wellington is a very pretty city with lots of hills and water. There are many old timber houses which reminded me a little of Eureka in California, though I didn't see any quite as ornate.

The highway goes along the coast and is quite spectacular. The hills are very steep and very green, while the edge of the ocean is rocky with waves pounding against the shore.

The motel is interesting. The room I have has no storage for clothes or cases, except a portable hanging rack. It is a disabled room, so the shower has no sill, but the shower curtain only goes half way round, so you have the choice of getting water all over the toilet or all over the floor. And there is no soap dish in the shower, which I found very strange.

The rooms connect, so the family room next door which Glenys and another tutor are sharing has been set up as a common room where we can gather together. They do have a separate bedroom.

This afternoon we are catching the train to Wellington where we are going to the final night of the WOW (World of Wearable Art) performance. I am looking forward to it.

Post #200

I wish I had something terrifically fibre based to write about for this landmark posting, but I don't.

Yesterday I spent entirely too much time downloading security updates for my laptop. I think Microsoft sucks. It took me all afternoon to download and install one file. I hate that you can spend an hour waiting for an installation to finish and then it decides to tell you that it has failed.

I have decided I want to try to blog from New Zealand and so I needed to install better security. I rarely connect the laptop to the Internet - almost all our internet stuff is done on the Macs and we use thumb drives to transfer files. We have bought and installed a WiFi card on the laptop and finally succeeded in installing the required security. Still haven't tested the connection - probably tomorrow at the Dome cafe in Fremantle which offers free access.

We then went out to dinner to a friend's house where we ate some very nice curry and I drank a little too much wine. I have been a bit slow today.

Helen came round in the late morning. Her printer is out of ink and she needed some pics printed of the T&E projects her students have been making so they can be displayed for the Parents' Night on Tuesday. Mum and Dad to the rescue again - except our printer ran out of ink too! We will try a refill tomorrow.

More Fibre at the Museum

I thought I had rabbited on enough yesterday so I didn't mention two other fibre pieces we were shown. I didn't take photos - I was a bit shy about asking - so no pictures, sorry. The pieces were cloaks from New Zealand. I know nothing about these, so I don't know if they were good examples or rubbish, but I found them pretty impressive.

The first was (according to the accompanying card) "woven from flax with thrums inserted into the warp". Doesn't sound that wonderful, does it? But it was really interesting. The base fabric was a creamy-beige colour, woven so that it appeared as textured rectangles. The "thrums" were black, long curly pieces almost like the stuff you can buy to use as dolls' hair. I assume they were wool, but I have no idea whether it was the natural colour or if they were dyed. The overall effect was almost like a layer of freeform lace on top of the base fabric.

The second was a feather cloak. I wasn't able to look closely at this, so I don't know what the base fabric was like, but it had intricately woven bands at each end. The feathers were a muted pinky-brown, quite fluffy, with here and there the eye from a peacock's feather. We were told that it dated from the 1880's.

I do think it is a shame that things like this are not on public display. I have decided that I need to know more about traditional New Zealand textiles, because I am going to the Aotearoa Textile Forum on the Kapiti coast in September.