Sunday, March 25, 2007

Lei making

So here it is Sunday morning and I'm still working on Thursday's posts. I'm already far behind in the blog and don't know when I'll have a chance to catch up. Friday was a full day and I have a lot of cool pics to share (birding, coastlines, lava tubes, and more. . .). I've also done my all-day demo with the Honolulu woodturners. Today will be my hands-on class with some of the club members and then I have to pack up and get to the airport. I'm catching a 12:30 am flight to Australia via Fiji.



To cap off Thursday's post, though, I'll share these images of Nashira (Craig and Teri's daughter-in-law) demonstrating how to make the traditional lei's used for the hula dancer's costume. These are made from Ti leaves.








Nashira told me that she freezes the leaves to make them more pliable.
















The leaves are cut into trapezoidal sections, which are then worked into the lei.











The cut sections are squeazed in the middle and braided into the growing chain of leaf sections.









It looks pretty complicated to me, but Nashira said it was very easy, but time consuming.












Here's what the braiding looks like.










A detail of the braiding.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is so helpful, thanks for posting! Do you know what the girl is braiding the ti leafs with? (The dark green substance)

Andi Wolfe said...

I thought everything was from the ti plant. The leaves are pretty long.

Anonymous said...

The dark green is ti leaf that has been frozen to make it soft and pliable.

Anonymous said...

can u do a video tutorial please of how to braid those ti leaves?