Bag

A flat rectangular bag (kete muka) made from New Zealand flax, in lighter and darker (purple) coloured fibre. There is a wide fringe around three sides on the back and front, and one twisted fibre handle. This bag was made by finger-weaving or twining and the main technique is double-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). Some of these are very close together in groups of four, six and four rows. The twining began at the top edge with a selvedge, and finished at the bottom where the warp threads (whenu) were left loose, and are covered by the fringes. There are five to six warps per cm, and the more widely spaced wefts are 13 mm apart. The fringe threads are joined by a line of single-pair twining and sewn onto the bottom and side edges. There is one fringe on the back of the bag and one on the front. Extra warps in undyed, dark and light purple fibre cross over eight between them at the widely spaced wefts to form a cross-diagonal pattern. This forms a block of four rows on the upper part of the bag and four on the lower. There is a purple running thread along the bottom weft/ row of twining. This pattern is repeated on the back of the bag.