Making Flax String!

We decided to make flax fibre plaits for our fish hooks that we made at Mapua. We were inspired by what we saw and wanted to have a go.
First we said a Karakia then cut some flax at school.

We used a mussel shell to try to cut the flax just like the Maori's used to, but we found it too wet to get the fibre out. we decided to let it dry for a day or so and try again.

We tried again the next day and it was a little easier but only little pieces. We decided to leave it another day.Finally we got some long flax fibres and we started to plait them.

When the plaits were finished we tied them to the hooks.

By Shannon, Poppi, Leigh, Tom and Ben


Tom is now very interested in investigating how strong the string is- next week we might try to test out different types of plaits with weights... Watch this space!