25 February 2012
Flax leaves are a popular and versatile addition to floral arrangements, irrespective of whether the flowers are picked from the garden or are woven from flax itself. Modern hybrid flaxes come in a variety of different colourings and are often used by florists in commercial floral displays. Flax can be dried into long thin rods and used to give height to a display, it can be netted to give a lacy effect in a display or it can be woven to make a foliage design rather than a flower. It can also be shredded into long strips and used to add a sense of movement to a display.
Shredded flax adds a light and airy dimension. It’s simple, easy, takes very little time to prepare, and can add a variety of interesting shapes and movements to a display. The thin mid-rib piece of flax that is stripped off a leaf before weaving can be used for shredding.
It’s ideal for this purpose as one end is the hard base of the leaf, which makes a strong stem. It’s also a way of using up pieces of flax that are usually seen as waste. Shred the flax with a strong dog comb or one of those spikey florist’s bases that is used in the bottom of vases to hold stalks in place.
Take the mid-rib piece and shred the flax from where the flax joins together down to the tip of the flax. Run the comb along the flax piece several times until it is evenly and reasonably finely shredded. This can be added to an arrangement as it is, or it can be dyed to give some colour and movement to an arrangement, as illustrated in the flax flower arrangement here, where the shredded flax flows gently down from the flowers, adding a softness to the hard edges of the pot.
Another way of using shredded flax is as a tight circlet or as softer flowing curls, as illustrated in the bouquet at the top of this post. To make the tight circlet, smooth the shreds together so they become a smooth rope and then wrap them around your fingers so they make a ring.
Keep wrapping until all of the flax rope is wrapped into the ring. Tie the ring of flax in place around the stem with a fine piece of flax to make a circlet or circlets for a display, or hold the wrapped circle in place with the tie or a peg until it dries. Once dried, undo the ties and gently tease the curls out until they fall in soft ringlets or waves. The curls are attractive when the shreds are left together in bunches and are just as attractive when separated out for a finer effect.
Florists often use the coloured variegated flax for foliage but green flax can be just as decorative. If it is featured as a straight leaf, it can give a strong structural quality to a display. By contrast, if it is curled around, it can give a soft, voluptuous quality.
Because of its structural qualities, flax foliage is particularly popular in Ikebana arrangements but it suits all kinds of displays and is used all over the world in floral displays. There are many ways flax can be used in floral arrangements, and some additional ideas on using flax as foliage can be found in my book and on this blog post. If you have any other ideas for using flax as foliage, do send me images of them to share on this blog post.
© Ali Brown 2012.
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I recently took part in my second paper-making workshop with 
As flax weavers know, flax has tough fibres and a very high fibre content. Indeed, some of the traditional forms of Māori weaving involve stripping flax right down to the pure fibre. For paper making, it is the high fibre content that makes flax a particularly suitable raw material.
For the technically-minded, when paper is made with any sort of plant fibre, the fibres lock together in a process called hydrogen bonding. Plants rely on cellulose for the strength in their branches and leaves, and paper is essentially a network of cellulose fibres held together by these hydrogen bonds.
To reduce the flax into small pieces, Mark bashes the flax leaves with a piece of wood to begin to split them apart and soften them (which is quicker than stripping them right down to the fibre). He then cuts the leaves crosswise with a craft knife, leaving pieces about 5 mm long. Another option can be found in Making paper in New Zealand, a book by May Davis, which contains clear, easy-to-follow instructions for making flax paper. May does not bash the flax and suggests removing the hard midrib of the flax leaf and cutting the leaves into 1 cm pieces with scissors. The extra step in making paper with flax involves using a solution of caustic soda in a stainless steel pot. (If the pot is aluminium, it will be eaten away by the caustic soda and will give off flammable hydrogen gas.) You can buy solid caustic soda from a hardware store or supermarket. 
Place the flax pieces in an empty stainless steel pot, and then add enough caustic soda solution to cover them. Boil the pieces about 40 minutes to an hour until they change colour. Alternatively, you can soak the pieces for a few days without boiling. Rinse the caustic soda from the pulp in a sieve under cold running water. From here on, you can follow standard 
For those who want to make paper in bulk, Mark has developed and manufactures the Hollander beater shown here, which he sells and exports at a fraction of the cost of other manufacturers of Hollanders. The Hollander takes the place of a blender and pulps the fibres rather than slicing them, which results in a higher quality paper-making pulp.
In the workshop, we made large sheets of flax paper and left them in the sun to dry completely before peeling them off the frame. The other workshop participants were artists making paper to paint on. For my part, I’m not sure what I’ll use the paper for and am still awaiting inspiration. Mainly, I participated in the workshops to learn more about another use for flax, and found Mark’s workshops enjoyable as well as informative. Mark now has a studio and gallery in Amberley where you can learn how to make paper.
This woven flax fantail — or Piwakawaka, a native bird of New Zealand — is an adaptation of a common woven bird design, and I’ve placed the instructions for weaving it on a separate web page, 
Once the final touches of cutting the wings and tail feathers are completed, there’ll be a cheeky, flighty, little fantail for you to enjoy. For the fantail shown above I dyed the flax to match the fantail’s own colours and netted the flax to give it a feathery look, although the fantail is still cute if it is woven without dyed or netted flax. However, if you do want to use netted flax, Weaving a flax fantail includes instructions for netting flax, and some notes on weaving the fantail with netted, dyed flax.
Making netted flax with a pasta machine was discovered by 
Participants in my flax weaving workshops have often asked me about netting flax, and a couple of commenters on my blog have also enquired about it. Netted flax is very attractive and is particularly popular for foliage in flower arrangements and bouquets. It also seemed ideal as a way of matching the feathers of a fantail.
Two days after the earthquake, as I drove around the Sumner estuary, I noticed shags drying their wings as they always do on a rocky outcrop, and later — when I was staying with one of my sons in a rural cottage — a pair of fantails flitted and flirted around the place, bringing a sense of joy and peace. Seeing these birds living life normally and happily inspired me back into creativity and the flax fantail is the result. Thank you to all those people throughout New Zealand who sent aroha and good wishes, and offered accommodation and holidays after the earthquake. Your thoughts were very welcome and much appreciated.
Summer is the time for holidays, beachcombing, sun hats and plenty of free space for creativity. For me, it’s a time for putting into practice some of the weaving ideas I’ve had during the year and haven’t tried out, as well as a time for just playing around with weaving.
Hats are fun to decorate, and shells add a summery, seaside look to a hat. I found this broken shell on the beach at Ruby Bay, filled it with little flax flowers and attached it to the hat band. The natural bronze colour of the flax I used, which was growing by my camp site, happened to match the brown colour of the hat, although the colour will fade in time.
Adding natural objects to the rim of a bowl can create an interesting look. I found this smooth, twisted root on the beach and it was supple enough to wind around the top of a woven bowl. The top of the bowl was finished in a French plait, which leaves the ends of the plait straggling around the top on both the inside and outside of the bowl.
These ends are normally cut off. In this case, I cut off the outside ends and wove selected groups of four inside ends into 
I rather like smooth, curved driftwood pieces as handles for baskets. In the piece illustrated here, I wedged one end of the driftwood into the weaving to keep the handle upright and tied it on with fine plaits by drilling a small hole through each end of the handle and threading the plaits through the holes and then tying them though the weaving. I’ve made a number of these three cornered baskets, or waka kete, and added shells or 
I have just released the second edition of my book, 
A bright, decorative look suitable for Christmas can be given to any piece of weaving by adding coloured strips of flax over the top of the existing weaving to make striking patterns. In the example on the left, I created a pattern by adding red flax strips on the top of a piece of undyed weaving. The good thing about this sort of patterning is that it can be removed later and the weaving will return to its original state. To overlay the pattern, I cut strips of red-dyed flax into lengths that were five times as long as the width of the strips used in the original weaving. I then inserted a length under one strip, over three strips and then under the next strip, on a diagonal, to create the first piece of the pattern. The next length was woven alongside this in the same way, to create the next piece of the pattern. For the dots, I inserted a shorter length of red flax over just one strip. The red strips were dry when I used them, although it may be easier to dampen the dyed flax before use. Be careful if you do moisten the dyed flax as the colour of the dye may come out onto the dried flax if the dyed flax is too wet. This red-coloured patterning would also look good against fresh green flax.
This way of putting patterns into weaving is quite different from the traditional way patterns are woven in flax weaving. In the traditional way, the dyed strips are woven into the main body of the weaving, and the pattern is made by the way the strips are woven together. In patterned flax baskets, or kete whakairo, the plan for the pattern, or whakapapa, is set at the beginning of the weaving when the dyed strips are included into a plait at the bottom of the basket. This way of incorporating patterns into the weaving is an advanced weaving technique, and examples of kete whakairo can be found in museums around the world. I wove the black and white kete pictured above using a pattern from Mick Pendergrast’s book Raranga Whakairo listed on the 
On another Christmas note, Phil — a customer who bought my book — sent me this photo of his wife Anne’s wreath, which is made from shredded flax and paua shell, and has three red woven flax flowers attached to the bottom of the wreath. I do like the way Anne has created the wreath, with a randomness in the use of the flax shreds but also structure in the shape, resulting a very attractive and original Christmas wreath. The New Zealand theme is further enhanced by the addition of pieces of paua shell attached randomly around the wreath. Instructions for making the woven flax flower that Anne has attached at the bottom of the wreath can be found 
While internet searching I found another interesting woven wreath, which is based on the three-dimensional star shown on the right. The wreath is made by shaping a number of these stars together in a circle. I haven’t been able to contact the owner of the photo of the wreath, Elmer, for permission to use it in my blog, but you can see the wreath 
“What can I use this hard butt end of the flax leaf for? It seems such a waste to cut it up for compost.” This question is one that is regularly asked in my workshops and one that I keep in mind myself. The butt end of the leaf, where it grows from the base of the plant, is very strong and can be shaped into handles for little baskets like the ones pictured here. These handles have attractive markings, ranging from cream to brown to dusky pink, depending on the colour inside the flax leaf, and they are simple and easy to make. I keep a store of them on hand for those times when I’d like to put a handle on a basket but haven’t the time to plait one.
To make the handle, split the flax butt apart down the middle, separating the two parts of the leaf. If the butt end has been cut off the leaf, it may not be that easy to get started so use a knife or sharp object to separate the two sides of the butt apart. Once you’ve separated the sides, pull them completely apart. There may be a sticky gel inside the leaf, which is traditionally used as a skin-repair ointment or as a glue. You can wipe this off, but it will dry into a cellophane-like substance which is easy enough to pull off when it’s dry.
The next step is to bend the butt over and secure it in this shape while it dries. Before bending it over, scrape the side of the butt that will be the underneath side of the handle. This will help to soften the butt and make it easier to bend. You can bend the butt either way but some of the harder, thicker butts may bend easier one way than the other. Try to bend the butt smoothly so that it doesn’t get sharp folds, as the one on the right has in the photo here. These folds are impossible to smooth out once the flax is creased. Put the bent butts inside a container that will hold them in shape, like the wide-mouthed jar I’ve used here, and leave to dry, or tape them into shape.
Once you’ve cut the butt to the correct length, trim the ends into a point and then push each one down through the weaving on each side of the basket, until a short end is sticking out from the weaving. Bend each end up and insert the end of the point underneath the closest strips to secure it. Pull the handle up gently so that the handle fits snugly in the weaving. This will secure the handle in place and make sure it doesn’t pull out as the flax dries. Alternatively, split the pointed ends of the handle into two and on each end bend one point up one side and one point up the other side to secure the handle.
This can either be done on the inside of the basket, as in the photo above, or the outside of the basket as in the photo to the left — if it’s on the outside it can be a decorative feature. If the handle is very dry, it may be necessary to moisten the end before you bend it up, otherwise it may split.
Using a hard but pliable material for a handle is a common way to make a handle in basket-making, although often the core material is covered with another material, like the handle on the willow basket pictured here. In this basket, the core is made from a thin bent willow branch, and this has been covered by winding finer willow branches around this core.
Receiving a text message at 4:15 am in Norfolk Island from my eldest son in Christchurch saying “massive earthquake” was the shocking start to my last day on the island (though fortunately my home was not damaged). I had just spent a week tutoring a series of flax weaving workshops, and spending time with local weavers, at the invitation of Norfolk Island’s Creative Arts community, and was heading home that day with the generous gift of a Norfolk Island hat, woven with Pitcairn Island pandanus by Wayne Boniface. Norfolk Island has a strong creative arts community including a Wearable Art Show. The entry pictured here is a creation made out of drain flax (bulrushes) by Wayne who explained how the design changed as he wove it and evolved into this lovely tropical, summery outfit.
It was interesting to weave in Norfolk Island because there were new weaving materials with different properties to try. Even Norfolk Island Phormium tenax is quite different from the Phormium tenax flax we have in New Zealand. I found it to be much more like Phormium cookianum. The leaves are short, wide, soft and brittle, and have very little fibre content, although this didn’t greatly affect the workshops I took, as the pieces people were weaving didn’t require strong fibre. Although flax grows abundantly in Norfolk Island, it’s not generally used as a weaving material, as the traditional weaving is done with pandanus — a tradition that originated from the original Pitcairn Island settlers.
Kentia Palms also grow abundantly on Norfolk Island and so I was able to experience weaving with a palm leaf for the first time. I cut a complete leaf off a tree and then used one section with ten leaflets each side of the rib to weave a large two-cornered basket. The leaflets were soft and easy to weave, and are quite wide, and so it took only a few minutes to weave up both sides of the leaf, from the rib upwards, and then weave the corners and finish the top. I used some of the left-over ends coming out of the top to plait a handle up both sides. It’s easy to see why palm frond baskets are used in other islands in the Pacific for everyday use as it’s so quick and easy to weave a large basket.
I also wove a round bowl from a Kentia Palm leaf using a technique that I hadn’t tried before, which makes use of the leaflets being attached to both sides of the rib. I enjoyed weaving this bowl, and plan to try it in flax, by using the plaited base used to start a large kete to mimic the rib of the palm. Unfortunately I was unable to bring these articles through New Zealand Customs as they were still green. (They could have come through Customs if they’d had time to dry.)
Another weaving material that is traditional to Norfolk Island, and one I particularly liked because of its mottled brown markings, is rahooloo or banana bark. The bark is easily stripped off the trunk of the tree because the trunk tends to shed its bark anyway. Once the bark is stripped off it is plaited into long strips in preparation for weaving a Norfolk-style hat or a basket. I used single strips and wove a little two-cornered basket which I was able to bring through New Zealand Customs as it was quite dry.
The Norfolk Island weavers also make use of packaging strapping to weave utility baskets, like the ones pictured here, woven by Wayne Boniface. These baskets are woven around a wooden form. The strips are nailed to the bottom of the form to hold them in place and then woven with a vertical/horizontal style of weaving. The handles are made with a four-plait cord, and the ends of the cords are woven into the body on the outside of the basket to create a decorative pattern. These baskets are for everyday use and are ideal when collecting shellfish, as the excess water can escape through the gaps between the waterproof strips.
If you are planning a trip to Norfolk Island and would like to meet some weavers, visit the Golden Orb Bookshop and Cafe on a Wednesday. There you’ll be able to see a group of weavers making traditional 
Although pandanus will no doubt continue to be the most popular weaving material in Norfolk Island, I am hopeful that flax will start to be used a bit more as weavers become accustomed to the different weaving properties it has.
If you’ve mastered the 
Using six strips opens up more possibilities for different patterns on the cord. The patterning on the cord will depend on which order the colours are hung together at the start and how many strips are used for each colour. The three patterns illustrated here are made as follows: the first sample is made using two green and one white strip on each side, (the white strips were the two strips in the middle), the second sample uses alternate green and white strips and the third one uses five green and one white strip. The same effect will be achieved no matter where the one different-coloured strip is put in the sequence in this pattern.
For the sample illustrations, I’ve used six different coloured flax strips to clearly show the plaiting of a rounded six-plait cord. The colours from left to right are pink, blue-green, white, lime-green, yellow and striped. A six-plait cord made from strips becomes rounded because the shiny side of each strip is kept to the outside of the cord all the time as you plait. Start with six flax strips all the same width.
As for any cord, it’s easier to get an even plait if you have one end of the work held by a friend or you tie the end around a solid object such as a chair leg or a nail in a piece of wood. This means you can pull the strands towards you as you plait, so you can keep an even tension on the plaiting. Here I’ve used a nail banged into a piece of wood. Arrange the strips so that the shiny side of each strip is showing uppermost. Start by crossing the left middle white strip over the right middle lime-green strip.
Now pick up the right-hand outside strip, the striped one, and keeping the shiny side of the flax showing, weave it across to the left and into the middle, going under the yellow strip that’s next to it, and over the next strip, which is the white one, so that it rests next to the other middle strip.
Go to the left-hand side, and keeping the shiny side of the flax showing, weave the outside red strip, into the middle. To do this, take it to the right over the blue-green strip next to it, under the lime-green strip and then over the striped strip. This completes the starting sequence.
The next sequence of movements are the ones that are repeated to make the six-plait cord. Go to the left-hand side and take the blue-green strip back behind all the other strips, and then bring it around and to the front, keeping the shiny side on the outside all the time. Now weave the strip into the middle of the strips. Do this by taking the blue-green strip over the yellow one, under the white one, and over the red one, so that it is now in the middle.
Go to the right side and, keeping the shiny side on the outside, take the yellow strip behind all the others, and then bring it around to the front. Now weave it through to the middle of the strips. Do this by weaving it over the lime-green one, under the striped one and over the blue-green strip to the middle.
Repeat the above two movements to continue the plait. Go to the left side and, keeping the shiny side to the outside, take the lime-green strip around the back and bring to around to the front. Now weave it through to the middle of the strips. Do this by weaving it over the white strip, under the red strip, and over the yellow strip to the middle.
Go to the right side and, keeping the shiny side to the top, take the white strip behind all the others and bring it around to the front. Now weave it through to the middle of the strips. Do this by taking it over the striped one, under the blue-green one and then over the lime-green strip to the middle. Repeat this sequence, remembering to alternate the sides that you pick up the strip to plait with. A way to make sure that you are choosing the right strip to start each plait with is to compare the outermost strips on each side. The strip that emerges from the side of the plait at the lowest point is the one to use. For example, in this photo here, it is the striped one on the left which is the one to plait with as it’s lower than the red one on the right.
As you plait, pull the strips up tightly together so that the cord becomes rounded and tightly plaited. This roundedness is not apparent with the first two or three movements but does become clear soon enough. I made this cord with six differently-coloured strips to make it easier to follow the instructions, but, as the photos at the top of this post show, it’s fun to use this plait to make differently patterned cords. The cord is not as strong as others as it has a hollow core. A stronger cord can be made by doing this six-plait with shredded flax. 
I saw this woven bag hanging on a stall in a local Saturday market and the long cylindrical shape of it caught my eye. I had a closer look and noticed that the well-used bag had been woven with a good deal of skill, and I hadn’t seen some of its weaving techniques before. I was interested to study the construction of the bag in more detail, and so I bought it.
I found the weaving at the top of the bag particularly interesting.The main body of the bag is woven diagonally, but the weaving changes to a vertical and horizontal weave which makes a straight edge around the top of the bag. After the completion of the top, the ends of the weaving strips exit the weaving at the base of the top, and are twisted along together to two points on each side, where they are plaited to make handles.
A simple one-over, one-under diagonal weave is used for the main body of the bag. However, a spiral pattern in the weave shows up when the weaving is seen from an angle. This spiral pattern is made by one strip being woven over two strips in a row, with this happening at the next point across in each consecutive row, thus making the spiral pattern. This change in the weave may also help to shape the bag.
The difference in the colours between the outside and the inside of the bag probably indicates that the bag has been used a lot. The colour on the outside of the bag is a faded mid-brown, but on the inside two colours are visible — a deep mid-brown and a dark rich brown — and these have been used to make a patterned design in the weave. Both shades appear to be the natural colours of the material, so maybe the material was treated in different ways, either with natural dyes or by another method, to achieve the differences in shade.
It’s difficult to work out how the base of the bag has been constructed, but it appears that all of the strips have been pulled and twisted together and then a plait has been woven around the strips to hold them in place. A single fine twisted cord also holds it all together. I have seen a somewhat similar type of finish on a jute string bag made in Bangladesh, but in that case the construction — where the threads are all pulled together around a circlet and then tied together in a large knot — is easier to see.
One of the things that I find particularly appealing about the bag is the effort that has been put into the detail. For example, the knotted ends of the handles. The handles of the bag are made by plaits coming from the body of the bag. Each handle is initially made with two plaits, which are joined together at the ends into one plait, as shown in the top photo. Instead of finishing this plait off with one large knot, it’s finished by separately twisting and knotting each one of the strands that was used to make the plait, which ends up as three small knots bunched together. This detail, combined with the skilled construction of the bag, make this bag a very fine example of the craft of weaving.
I’ve really enjoyed reading the many letters, emails and blog comments that other weavers have sent me since I published my book. It’s fascinating to read about people’s weaving experiences and to see photos of their work, especially when it’s something I haven’t tried myself, such as weaving flax head-gear.
The photos I’ve used on this blog post were sent to me by Lesley Jenkins and Wayne Boniface of Norfolk Island. These beautifully-woven and decorated hats are made in a traditional Norfolk Island weaving style. Norfolk Island doesn’t have much in the way of weaving material so the islanders use what they can, including banana tree bark, corn husk, drain flax (this is not Phormium tenax, it looks like bulrush to me), Moo-oo, or 
Lesley and Wayne use pandanas and Moo-oo which they gather from the cliffs around Norfolk Island. As with many plants used for weaving, Moo-oo has razor edges which are stripped off. It’s then left to dry out for about ten days before use. The traditional method is to plait the material into one long flat strip, which is then wound around and sewn into a hat shape. Lesley and Wayne have used a variety of different styles of flowers to decorate their hats in attractive ways.
Another email I received recently was from Greta Nicholson, who enlisted the help of her son to make a 
Writing a book can be such a long-winded, solitary business that it’s great to get feedback, and all the positive feedback has inspired me to extend and update it at some point soonish. 
One of the additions will be a flax pohutukawa flower which I recently created for Miss World New Zealand 2009, Magdalena Schoeman, to wear in her hair in the Miss World Pageant in South Africa. It took a while to figure out how to make the pohutukawa and I don’t currently have written instructions for it, but it will certainly feature in the updated version of the book. I was notoriously wrong in my predictions about how long it would take to publish the first version of the book, so I’m not making any predictions about when the updated version will be published! ??
Addition 27 Jan 2010