Bag

A flat bag (kete muka), probably a letter rack, made from New Zealand flax fibre with a long rectangular shape coming to a rounded point at the top end, with two pockets below it. There is a wide fringe around all sides. This bag was made by finger-weaving or twining and the main technique is double-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho) on the front of the pockets and the area above them. All except one of these wefts are twined using dark blue thread and have five warps per cm and wefts 17 mm apart. The wefts on the back of the pockets are single-pair twining in undyed thread and have four warps per cm and are 36 mm apart. The wefts are tied off and cut at the ends. The twining for the pockets began at the top edge with a selvedge and the warps end at the bottom with the loose ends forming a fringe. The back section begins and ends with loose warps at the top and the bottom. At the top end, where the shape comes to a rounded point, some warps ends are left loose at the end of each weft. The threads of the main fringe are joined by a line of single-pair twining in blue thread and sewn onto all edges on the front side only. Each warp on the front of the letter rack is crossed over with next one between wefts, giving a textured effect.