Pick up needle and thread for a good cause
Over the past couple of weeks, an old boardroom inside Wellington Museum was transformed into a fabric workshop.
Wellington sewing initiative Vinnies Re Sew embarked on a Suffrage In Stitches project to recreate the 1893 suffrage petition in kind.
The organisation is asking individuals and groups to pick up needle and thread to stitch 546 different panels, representing the 546 pages of the suffrage petition.
Each panel will be stitched together to create a 274 metre-long textile piece, to be displayed inside the museum early next year.
The panels are inspired by women – whether that’s women that signed the petition 125 years ago, or someone within the family that was a role model.
Re Sew textile recycling co-ordinator Caroline O’Reilly has been organising the workshops, as well as making her own panel, inspired by her mother, Mary O’Reilly.
She also wanted to chart the journeys of the women on the path to gather signatures, so she added meandering green thread to her piece of fabric.
‘‘The petition went around the country, winding up roads, through valleys. So all these loose threads represent all the roads they travelled on.’’
Throughout this month, people had been
dropping by Wellington Museum to talk about women who inspired them and pick up a new stitching technique or two.
‘‘People who haven’t even thought they were creative have come up with some great things,’’ O’Reilly said.
Re Sew volunteer Iriha¯ peti Te Aho had dropped by the workshop to start on her fifth panel: one honouring the wa¯ hine of Nga¯ ti Kahungunu.
‘‘Women have got a strong voice in
Ma¯ oridom that people don’t know about,’’ Te Aho said.
She joined Vinnies Re Sew a few months ago, after her work dried up and said she’d found it a great way to help and give back to the community.
Vinnies Re Sew is funded by Saint Vincent de Paul.
For details on Suffrage In Stitches, email resew@vinnieswgtn.org.nz.