New Zealand Week 2

 I've joined my small group bus tour now, we've had three days on the road and so far it seems fine. A more leisurely pace than I would take on my own, but they are driving me places that I wouldn't be able to access as a non-driver.   When I was still on my own, after leaving Napier I caught the bus to Rotorua which is a centre for the Maori culture as well as being extremely geothermally active. I enjoyed a couple of the Maori experiences that you can book, and learning more about Maori history and culture. 

Quite near my hostel was the attractive shop 'Cottage Flair' which is mainly a patchwork shop but also has some knitting wool.  There is a classroom at the back of the store and the sound of sewing machines whirring away made me a bit homesick for my own sewing room.  I enjoyed looking around, especially as they had a number of sewn samples made up from patterns to look at.  They feature a lot of Australian designers but also had ByAnnie and the British designer Love from Beth.  There were one or two NZ designers as well.  I only bought a small pattern from Australian designer Hatched & Patched to make a cute pincushion featuring a caravan.

I bought a cute teatowel featuring multi coloured kiwi birds which is too cute to use as a towel, I will probably make something else with it.

I was interested to see in a Rotorua bookstore, instruction manuals in English for various Maori crafts such as how to prepare and weave flax, woodcarving etc.  It's good to see that this traditional knowledge has been captured for the modern generation. 

Not exactly craft but the Jelly Belly store at the top of the Rotorua gondola run had pictures made entirely from real jelly beans on their wall. Also in the gift shop up there, I found a lasercut model Maori meeting house (forgot to take a picture) that I bought for my dollshouse collection.

In some of the museums I've visited, they've had examples of Maori weaving for clothing, often embellished with things like feathers.

In a craft gallery, I saw this teacup 'still life' which is quite cute, I own a similar one at home.

On the first day of our tour, we stopped at a bird rescue centre and I got to pet a kiwi, it's an educational bird rescued after losing a leg in a trap and has been toured around the country to schools and the like to raise awareness of this threatened species.  The feathers unexpectedly felt like coarse dog hair. He was quite happily rooting for worms while we admired him.