One of my resolutions for 2010 was to have more fun, and what could possibly be more fun that a week of sewing?

So, with lunch and a bundle of fabric in my basket, I took myself off to summer school to begin the Tivaevae course I’d enrolled in at the Corban’s Estate Arts Centre.

The stars must have be in alignment, because our lovely tutor Mary Ama, had chosen to hold the class in this little church. What better place to camp out for a week?

It sits in a beautiful grassy field that had me wondering if I was in New England. An auspicious beginning.

To inspire us, Mary had decorated the church with her own works in various stages of completion.

My head was already bursting with all the possibilities for what I wanted to achieve in 5 days, but the sight of Mary’s masterful examples prompted a stern chat with myself:

Girl, refrain from being too ambitious and learn as much as you can in the presence of this marvellous artist.

We began with an explanation of Tivaevae:

they are usually made by a group of ladies who choose a pattern and make one quilt for each in turn. The word means “continual sewing”. They are not, as a rule, sold or even displayed in public, but are made for loved ones, mostly for glory boxes, special birthdays and weddings. They are often used to wrap the dead. In other words, they are made with love, for no commercial purpose.

This explains why there are so few for sale in Rarotonga.

It’s important to use suitable fabric. 100% cotton in best. Most tivaevae are dazzling, in bold beautiful colours.

Mary says that that every person’s tivaevae tells a personal story.

We all chose projects that seemed to reflect our personalities. Jude (below) lives next to a stream on a lush property in the Waitakeres.

Her acid green background and bold applique design suited her lively personality.[note the large basting stitches used to keep the design in place on the background while it's embroidered]

Marian, my knitting colleague, chose a lei motif, with leaves and flowers placed in circle. It was a perfect blend of her English roots and the exoticism of her adopted homeland in the South Seas.

Her embroidery is as exquisite as her knitting and each new stitch she learned was executed to perfection.

As for my own tivaevae personality, Mary said my design was very “English”. I wasn’t sure what she meant until I began to embroider an anthurium design and realized that it reminded me of paisley, more Liberty of London than Cook Islands.  But then, James Cook, after whom the islands were named, was an Englishman and here we all are in a colourful blend of cultures and histories.

I arrived at the class with two muted shades of cotton I’d bought in New York. I wanted my tivaevae to remind me of my trip and the wonderful time I’d spent with India.

During the course of the week I came to regret my tame colour choices as I cast an envious eye over at my companions. But then, I am a Gemini after all.

In the course of the week I completed the blind stitching of the perimeter and the embroidery in one corner. Blind stitching isn’t always necessary but for a novice embroiderer like myself, it made for a more secure edging. Besides, my New York fabric frayed easily and would have been hard to fold and embroider simultaneously. Some Tivaevae, notably the ones made in Tahiti, are solely blind stitched. What sets the Cook Island tivaevae apart from other Pacific island quilts is the embroidery. It’s fantastically detailed.

Did I mention our fellow student, Isabella?

She required a very long leash and although she preferred custard pastries to needle and thread, she did have a few tricks up her sleeve, like this “powhiri” [Maori welcome].

I wonder if Tivaevae also means “continual gossip”? As with any group of knitters or quilters, fascinating stories were told as we worked, and we discovered that just like in the Islands, we are all connected by one means or another. Amazingly, all three of my classmates are descended from Spanish Armada sailors shipwrecked on the coast of Wales and Scotland. I felt a little left out. My ancestors must have been too busy knitting.

Here’s the spacious covered verandah where we ate our lunch each day.

Good news  for Tivaevae enthustiasts! As you know, it can be difficult to find anyone to teach you this splendid craft, even in Rarotonga or the other Cook islands.

Well then, our ship has come in. The Corbans Estate Arts Centre in Henderson, Auckland, is holding a week long Tivaevae Workshop, as part of its summer school, Jan 18-22.

Here is the link.

If you love Tivaevae, this book, (the source of the image above), is an inspiration. It contains stories and glorious colour photos of Cook Island woman and their quilts. No how-tos, though. You need to go to the workshop for that.

I’ve signed up. Hope to see you there!

Before I head off to New York, I thought I’d share this wonderful embroidered ship that I found at Salvage on Mt Eden Road.

And by the way, although I’m away for a couple of weeks, South Seas Knitting is fulfilling your orders every day as usual, and attending to any questions or concerns via email.

 

 

How satisfying is it to make something lovely with materials that were gathering dust in your cupboard?

The pillow inner, I confess, was made by an upholsterer after a fruitless search for one ready made. Some things are best left to professionals. The hexagons were knitted one evening while watching Sally Potter’s Orlando. Hands up those who love Tilda Swinton! (I may have to watch it again sans tricoter since the costumes are exquisite and I’m quite sure I missed some important details while concentrating on my hexagons)
The linen fabric was left over from a bolt David once found at a yard sale in LA (do you want this honey? I got it for ten bucks) You have to love a man who’d buy 50 yards of fabric off a front lawn. It covered the sofa at home and the sofa at Wildfiber with quite a bit to spare. I love the combination of vivid brights grounded by a natural coloured background.
The hexagons were sewn together then stitched onto the linen with yarn. Doing so reminded me of embroidering on hessian the way we used to in primary school and I thought I’d like to do more of that some time soon. I added stripes of gros grain ribbon along the gusset for some extra sunshine.

 

 

The sewing together of the pillow was done on my machine, with a 38cm zipper along one edge.

When assembled it reminded me of Moroccan pillows and spawned a whole new set of ideas about more patch work cushions and another knitted one, this time in Koigu KPPPM multi-coloured merino with a tweedy wool fabric.

Below is the pattern for a hexagon. Mine are 14cm from point to point.  If you want smaller pieces you could use a thinner yarn or even stop short of my 66 stitches.

For the casing, I cut two 38cm diameter circles and an 18cm wide strip for the gusset.

I used:
Blue Sky Alpacas Dyed Organic Cotton in shades 607-lemon grass, 630-caribbean, 604-aloe, 627-flamingo, 617-lotus, 634-periwinkle, and 638-dandelion: small amounts of each.

Size 4mm double pointed needles.

Pillow Size: 38cm [15"] in diameter
Your choice of yarn will affect the size of the pillow.

 

 

HEXAGON [make 7]

With dpns, cast on 12 stitches. Distribute the stitches so that there are 4 on each of 3 needles and use one as a working needle.

Rnd 1: Knit into the back of all stitches.
Rnd 2: *K1, kfb; repeat from * to end.
Rnd 3: Knit
Rnd 4: Kfb in first and last stitch on each needle, and in the middle 2 sts of each needle.
Rnds 5 & 6: Knit
Repeat Rnds 4-6 until there are 66 sts in total, ending with Rnd 6.
Bind off loosely.

Happy knitting!

–Mel

 

The Islands. That’s what we call them, the soft and seductive places in the Pacific that we New Zealanders can go to as easily as Californians visit Mexico or Europeans visit the Mediterranean.

If you catch the night flight and sleep all the way there, you’ll know when you’ve arrived because there will be flowers around your neck and in every corner of your room.

 

David and I have just sent 8 days in Rarotonga, the main island in the Cooks, which is the same distance south of the equator as Hawaii is north, and has a similar climate.It is roughly circular and volcanic, small enough that you can drive around it in an hour. But drive we did not. There’s a bus service, with two choices of route, clockwise or anti. Here’s the bus stop. You get the idea. It’s no hardship to wait, even when the bus comes once per hour.

 

 

Mostly we walked and rode bicycles and admired the fauna. It’s the winter and although the flowers are not quite as abundant as in summer (but that’s also cyclone season, so beauty has its price) the greenery is fascinating. I did not stop to investigate any species names, but fell in love with the leaves of this picot edged shrub

 

 

and this elegant stag horn fern

 

 

One day we rode around the ancient coral road (built 1500 years ago), which circles the island not far inland from the coast road, at the foot of the dramatic volcanic interior.This seemed to be the real Rarotonga, with taro fields and paw paw patches like this one

 

 

In the main township of Avarua, David patiently held my bike outside several shops selling island crafts, while I searched for what I’d been anticipating for months: a glimpse of Tivaevae. Also spelled Tivaivai or, in Tahiti, Tifaifai, they are hand sewn bed covers common to Hawaii, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.

Gold was struck out the back of one shop that I had the good fortune to enter just as the owner was unveiling this stunning specimen for two women who seemed none too keen to share the experience with me, perhaps because they’d had to do some fast talking to get as far as this.

 

 

It is one of several made by a very elderly lady and left in the care of the shop owner who has stored them behind glass and is reluctant to take them out.  Although they’re for sale, I felt like a gauche papa’a (foreigner, meaning, literally, 4 layers of clothing, from missionary times) asking the price. Most tivaevae are made for family members and are not for sale. Here is the beckoning glass case

 

 

The origins of tivaevea date back to the early 1800’s and the arrival of the missionaries who brought with them cotton fabric that would gradually replace the indigenous bark tapa cloth as the main source of clothing material. But the women of the Islands took the sewing skills and developed a style entirely their own. You see a few pieced patchwork quilts, but mainly the tivaevae are bursts of colour in abstract floral patterns, one color appliquéd onto a background. 

Having decided not to trouble the custodian of the glass case any further, I resolved to look for someone who might be able to show me how to make my own. This seemed to be in keeping with the spirit of the craft.

At Punanganui market, a collection of huts and stalls which is mostly quiet on weekdays but bustling on Saturdays with locals and tourists buying produce and crafts, we found two beautiful women from Penrhyn Island (the northernmost of the Cooks, a four hour flight from Rarotonga and with a population of only 600!)  famous for its traditional weaving. Who could resist these exquisite fans? 

 

 

Across the way was a promising sign: a tivaevae in the making

 

 

It turned out to be a work in progress of  friendly, ebullient Ina Bishop, who, after very little coaxing, offered to show me how to cut and embroider my own if I returned the following Tuesday. Assisting Ina was Iselin Bing, a knitter from Norway (are you on ravelry? she asked) who has been in Rarotonga since January researching tivaevae for her anthropology thesis. She has made her own gorgeous tivaevae which, she says, will go into her “glory box” when she returns home soon.

 

 

So back I trotted on Tuesday morning to find Ina in full flight, teaching several women, two Australians and one Aucklander (below) who had bought hers already cut and was going to embroider it herself. Clever her, skipping the scary bit.

 

 

This is Ina’s way: your background and top layer must be exactly the same size. Sheeting fabric is often used but you can piece together strips for whatever size you want. The top layer, from which you will cut your pattern, is folded into four, the design drawn on one quarter, emanating from the center. Here is Ina cutting the top layer of a baby tivaevae.

 

 

I think I’ll have to make a paper template first when I try this, but Ina is so skilled she just drew freehand and launched into the cutting. Here’s the design unfolded.

 

 

The next step is to sew the top layer to the base, around the four edges, then turn it out so the you have the edge of your tivaevae completed before the next step of basting the cut design onto the background. For this you can use very large stitches, just secure enough to hold the design in place while you embroider. 

 

 

Ina turns the edge as she embroiders. She makes it look easy as she expertly slides the needle along the cut fabric to turn it under. Novices like me might want to turn and blind stitch it first before we attempt the embroidery for which she uses a twisted blanket stitch. It gives a slightly scalloped effect to the appliqué. For a first attempt my stitching wasn’t too bad (Ina is kind and diplomatic) but I’ll need to practise on a pillow before I attempt anything larger. Note that I am not displaying my efforts.

Here is a tivaevae that has been blind stitched all over, and is now being given an overlay of embroidery.

 

 

After my couple of hours with Ina I felt that I had a basic idea of how to proceed on my own, so I set of for the fabric shop to buy a few pieces of cotton fabric and cycled back to our digs a happy woman.

Somewhere en route the idea of using tivaevae motifs to knit bright summer pillows took hold. Knitting is never far from my thoughts. I’ll be investigating this further.

It’s hard to leave Rarotonga, gentle island. You always wonder if there’s a way you could rearrange your life to live there. 

David, reading my mind, saw this empty stall at the market and wondered if it could be the new home of South Seas Knitting?

 

 

Thank you  for sharing, Ina! I will send your fabric cutter soon!

–Mel