The Good Stuff

The Good Stuff Havelock North, NZ 🌼 Karen x

Studying L5 raranga/whatu in 2026 at TWoA Rotorua, completed L4 raranga/wahtu in 2025 at TWoA Heretaunga, wild weaving, handcrafted hand brooms, woven stones, natural soap, hair and skincare & more.

03/04/2026

I inherited an EXTREMELY unruly wisteria on my side fence. Went to give it a prune to find out it was mostly rotten on the inside. Decided it was goodbye time rather than pruning!

I didn’t take a photo before I started, but in the first picture it’s about half the size it started out as. I promise you, I think Tarzan must’ve swung on wisteria vine, because these things were super thick, and really long.

Anyway, as you may have seen one of my stories last week, I started making a random-weave ball from the vines. Random weave can take a bit to get going and to create a stable starting structure (especially with material this big), but are very satisfying to make. After some more mahi on it this week I added to the ball and it’s now looking pretty good. It stands about hip height on me, so maybe about a metre high?

This is a good example of turning garden waste into something pretty cool! You can weave with so many different plants, you’ve only got to try. These thick vines were very hard to weave, but it was a good work out and I feel like I now have big guns and really strong hands from wrangling it! 😜

Thanks to and for teaching me how to random weave. I just love it! In fact, I love all weaving 😍

30/03/2026

Take some Harakeke and rattan, plait the Harakeke for hours and hours to make about 6 metres of whiri (plait/braid), weave this whiri and rattan around some rocks for a few hours and voilà! No glue, no knots, just magic! 💫

PS. And the grey round stone is for sale on my website if you fancy it! thegoodstuff.co.nz

28/03/2026

So I dyed today. The green didn’t quite come out as I had pictured in my head, but despite repeated attempts to soften it. this is what it wanted to be. So I’ve embraced it and have let the harakeke choose its colour. 💚

These are the three colours that will make up my whāriki. Maybe I’ll get to start weaving tomorrow. 😬

PS. Sorry about the slightly wonky videoing. It’s really hard to video and see what you’re doing at the same time! 😜

One of my classmates laid down a wero (challenge) to us all for our graduation ceremony on Friday. In honour of the wāhi...
23/03/2026

One of my classmates laid down a wero (challenge) to us all for our graduation ceremony on Friday. In honour of the wāhine that had to weave in secret during the Tohunga Suppression Act period (1907-1962), we were to dress in the Victorian style but bling ourselves up with our woven treasures.

The last image in this post is called unknown Maori woman wearing Victorian dress with korowai. Wāhine looked compliant with the Act, while still creating taonga and keeping the matauranga and practice alive. Under those frilly blouses and long skirts they were doing their “womens craft”.

So we dressed to honour those who wove before us, they who ensured Māori matauranga survived. It is because of them, we weave.

Thanks Tash for this wero, it made our day even more special and I was very humbled to be a part of it.

Thank you also to Shayne Jeffares for the fabulous photos.

18/03/2026

Another day of prepping Harakeke today, I think about 50 or so rau that I harvested yesterday. Just doing hāpine atm. This will make it about 150 rau processed since Friday.

Sure my cotton glove is looking a bit manky, but it stops me getting cuts and splinters!

15/03/2026

This is about 6hrs mahi from yesterday condensed down into about 1 minute. I did skip out the bundling up of all the prepped whenu.

I ended up prepping about 500+ 4mm wide whenu. Of these, only about 350 are the right length for my first project of the year (whāriki - floor mat), so I’ve only got about 1000 more to prep! 😳

Poor Trevor was exhausted by the end of the day, but was happy to guard it all just in case something bad happened! So great having an assistant 😆

Decided to have a bit of a play with AI to create a cartoon of me. I appear to have lost a bit of weight which is really...
10/03/2026

Decided to have a bit of a play with AI to create a cartoon of me. I appear to have lost a bit of weight which is really nice! Maybe AI me might win lotto too?

Have you tried AI for anything fun or fantastic?

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Hastings

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