{"id":406,"date":"2015-01-18T16:04:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-18T16:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/18\/cook-islands-tivaevae-2\/"},"modified":"2015-01-18T16:04:00","modified_gmt":"2015-01-18T16:04:00","slug":"cook-islands-tivaevae-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/cook-islands-tivaevae-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Cook Islands Tivaevae"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nDestination: the South Pacific<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nMost visitors miss some of the most beautiful South Pacific
\nislands of paradise for the simple reason that they are in the middle of a vast
\nsea and, frankly, are not well known. 
\nOne lovely island nation is the Cook Islands. The \u201cCooks\u201d are comprised
\nof 15 islands with a total land area of a little over 90sq.miles, however their
\ngeographical boundaries are nearly 700,000 sq. miles of Pacific Ocean.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nThey have a parliamentary form of democratic government and
\nhave a unique relationship with New Zealand as a \u201cfree, associated state\u201d, in
\nthat N.Z. has responsibility for their external affairs.  Cook Islanders are also New Zealand
\ncitizens, although the reverse is not true.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\n                                                    Parliament building in Rarotonga<\/div>\n
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\nThe capital is Rarotonga, but our final destination was
\nAitutaki, which is reported to have \u201cthe most beautiful lagoon in the world\u201d,
\naccording to tourist information.  Our
\nreason for this short air flight (in the smallest plane I have even flown), was
\na meeting with a ham radio operator and a meeting with textile artists, Mrs.
\nRuRu Carl  and  Mrs. Tara Thomas, who worked with the island\u2019s tivaevae
\nmakers.  Guess whom I was meeting.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nAt first glance, Tivaevae, is a version of Hawaiian quilts
\n(also sometimes mistaken for Tahitian\u201dTifaifai\u201d).  Their resemblance is understandable.  Although the islands are thousands of miles apart, missionaries
\nand their families traveled throughout Polynesia.   The missionary wives taught native women sewing and embroidery
\ntechniques, including the making of bed coverings. While all variations are
\nbased upon appliqu\u00e9 of common native plant life motifs onto a ground fabric,
\nwhich is then sewn onto a backing fabric, there are differences.  The most outstanding difference is that
\nHawaiian quilts are quilts in the sense that they have 3 layers: the patterned
\nfront, the plain backing and an inner layer of some type of batting.  These are heavily quilted using very small
\nstitches to create parallel quilt lines, which follow the appliqu\u00e9 pattern.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nTivaevae are, what we would call, bed spreads.  There is no inner batting, nor, usually
\nquilting.  The motifs are folded squares
\nof cotton fabric, cut into designs, similar to cutting out snowflakes <\/span>
\n( believe
\nme, there is no snow to be found). 
\nThese appliqu\u00e9d spreads are called\u201d Tivaevae manu\u201d.using only one color
\nfor the pattern.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\n\u201cTivaevae taorei\u201d are pieced spreads made from small pieces
\nof  four or more colored fabrics forming
\ntriangles, squares or diamond patterns. 
\nThis is intricate work, as each member of the sewing group (vainentini)
\nworks on her own square.  Therefore,
\neach square must be counted and sewn correctly if the sections are to fit and
\nform the overall pattern.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\n\u201cTivaevae tataura\u201d patterns are cut out and embroidered
\nbefore being sewn onto the ground fabric, although it may be appliqu\u00e9d and then
\nembroidered with 2 strands of pearl cotton, often variegated..  Embroidery stitches may include feather,
\nchain and stem stitches, as well as variations of other embroidery stitches.<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nEach floral motif takes one artist up to one day to create.<\/div>\n
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\nTivaevae tataura<\/div>\n
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\nA variation of \u201cTivaevae tataura\u201d is \u201ctuitui\u201d, in which
\nmotifs are sewn onto ground fabric squares, The squares are then crocheted
\ntogether before being sewn onto the backing fabric.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\nTivaevae: Portraits of Cook Islands Quilting, Lynnsay Rongokea, Daphne Brasell Associates Press, Wellington, N.Z., 1992<\/span><\/div>\n
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Destination: the South Pacific Most visitors miss some of the most beautiful South Pacific islands of paradise for the simple reason that they are in the middle of a vast sea and, frankly, are not well known.  One lovely island nation is the Cook Islands. The \u201cCooks\u201d are comprised of 15 islands with a total…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}