Canterbury woman plans expansion of cottage industry

Press, 27 June 1983, Page 14

Canterbury woman plans expansion of cottage industry

Judith Doyle meets Margaret Stove, a renowned Canterbury craftswoman, who has plans for developing the export potential of New Zealand's woollen handcrafts.

New Zealand is the only country producing handspun and hand-knitted garments commercially, says Margaret Stove of Glenroy School House, Hororata, Canterbury. She was a delegate to the New Zealand Woolcraft Festival held at New Plymouth recently. Next year’s festival will be held in Queenstown. The high quality of New Zealand woolcrafts is becoming increasingly well known overseas. Craftspeople from Australia, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Britain and Japan came to this year’s festival. Margaret Stove is one of New Zealand’s leading craftspeople working in wool. She was chosen by South Island high country wool growers to spin and knit the exquisite “ring” shawl that was presented to Prince William. A “ring” shawl is so light and fine that the whole shawl can be pulled through a wedding ring. This one was made from the fleece of the Merino sheep. As well as spinning and knitting the shawl, Margaret Stove designed the pattern. “In Iceland they make beautiful hand-knitted jerseys but they are all from

mill-spun wool. In the Shetlands, they are still doing hand-knits — Fair Isle and beautiful lace shawls — but it is mill-spun wool that they’re using,” she says. “There is one lady left on Shetlands that spins superfine hand-spun ring shawls, and she says it takes her a year to spin one and a year to knit one. “Obviously she is not doing this for sale because it is a very skilled article that she is producing. “So New Zealand is the only country hand-spinning and then hand-knitting for sale in any volume whatsoever.” Because of this unique New Zealand ability, New Zealand spinners are sought after as teachers, especially in America and Australia. “We have tutors from overseas whom we have invited here and even though they are helping us with a lot of our weaving and spinning, they're learn-

ing a lot too to take back home overseas.” Why are New Zealanders so good at woolcraft? “We all come from pioneering stock and we have had to do things for ourselves. This is probably why it is hard to sell handwoolcrafted garments here to New Zealanders. “The vast majority of New Zealanders say, ‘Well if I go home I could do it myself.’ “We should sell our products on markets where only 1 per cent of the population could do it themselves.” Spinning and weaving is very widespread here, both in the countryside and in towns. The Woolcraft Society has 3000 affiliated members. But many spinners and weavers are not members. For every affiliated member there are probably at least half a dozen who are not. That would make the numbers involved in woolcraft at around 50,000.

Because spinning and knitting together make a unique product — every garment made individually like this is a once-only — volume is bound to be small. Volume is the main stumbling block to expansion. Overseas buyers come the New Zealand spinners and say, “Right, we’d like 2000 of those.” But this can’t be done while retaining the unique “one-off’ attraction of the garment that is its main appeal. At the moment, these garments are ridiculously under-priced, Margaret Stove claims. She has a master plan for New Zealand woolcrafts. She envisages small workshops throughout the country linked to a particular overseas outlet which it supplies exclusively. That one workshoop would present its retail outlet, probably an exclusive boutique-style shop, with a selection of garments that had been designed by one or two people. After they had received orders, that workshop would supply limited numbers to that particular boutique. Or numbers of items in toning shades could be made so they would all go together. “Spinning has always been a social thing, and I think this is important. “I don’t see the workshops being small enough to operate from someone’s house, especially where weaving was concerned, but I think they would need to be kept small and individual.” This would keep the character of the craft. There wqould be no danger of the finished articles getting a mass-produced appearance. “There could be an apprentice or two learning the trade. Skilled people would come in and provide the spun wool. They would find out what was required and

then, maybe, either work in their own home, or in the sociable workshop situation. “With people working in different work- situations, there would be a need for the sort of work they were doing to be assessed and graded accordingly. “At the moment it is a case of just a few individuals working along these lines. We have the support

of the society which has a quality control committee that could inspect goods before they went overseas. “My own little group in Canterbury is producing a collection of garments for a start. Our group could become a prototype for workshops of this kind. “At the moment we are still exploring ways of finding markets, with help from

the Department of Trade and Industry. Ruth Richardson, our M.P., is helping here.” The spinning and knitting area is the one that Margaret Stove is exploring at the moment, but she sees an extension to weaving as a logical step. She could be ushering in a new era in New 7 Zealand's unique cottage industry.