Cloak

A rectangular cloak (korowai, ngore type) made from New Zealand Flax fibre with black-dyed rolled tassels and wool pompoms at intervals on the outside and tassels forming fringes on all edges. There is a second line of tassels along each side. This garment was made by finger-weaving or twining without the use of a loom. The main technique used is double-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). There is one row of double-pair and one row of single-pair twining at the bottom edge where the loose ends of the warps (whenu) form a fringe, and one row of single-pair twining at the neck edge. The twining began at the bottom edge and finished with the warps being folded over at the neck edge in a thick roll and hidden by tassels. The neck edge has dark and undyed pale yellow threads. There are seven warps per cm and the wefts (aho) are 9-11mm apart. The black-dyed tassels on the main part of the cloak are two-ply and inserted sideways through two adjacent weft loops. At the neck edge they are inserted upside down. Red and grey wool pompoms are twined into the main part of the cloak at intervals. There are nine grouped extra short wefts (aho poka) on each side of the shoulder area, eight one each side at the middle and eleven on each side at the hip to provide shaping. The black-dyed flax is very fragile.