Bag

A flat rectangular bag (kete muka) made from New Zealand Flax fibre. There is a wide fringe around three sides on the back and front. This bag was made by finger-weaving or twining and the main technique is single-pair twining, which forms the wefts (aho). This 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 six warps per cm, and the wefts are 12 mm apart. The fringe warps 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. The bag is natural undyed New Zealand flax and has two handles of twisted undyed and black fibre, ending in tassels. There are undyed running threads twined into the wefts every 8, 9 or 10 warps. These form loops, most of which cross with loops on the weft above or below, the whole forming a rectangular pattern on front and back.