Page 49 - Constructing Craft

these groups were interested in esoteric thought, Ouija boards and telepathy. In this

they mirrored groups involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Amy and Bessie left
Omatua in 1952 and moved back to Napier. Amy Hutchinson died at Napier on 20

July 1971 aged 97. Amy and Bessie represent the many women who were early
individual weavers. Their involvement in fibre craft was only a part of their very busy

lives.

Bessie Spencer sits with handcrafts from Hawke’s Bay institutes, at the New
Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1925. Photo: Jock Phillips. Te
Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Another who was involved with a range of activities was Aileen Stace. Aileen was
born in the Manawatu in 1895. Physically disabled by tuberculosis as an infant, she

devoted her life to creative pursuits including earning an income by making
decorative cardboard boxes and decorating glass plates with cigar bands. Like Amy

Hutchinson and Bessie Spencer, Aileen and her sister, Linda Girdlestone, knitted

jerseys for sailors during the Second World War. When supplies of commercial wool
ran out they taught themselves to spin their own wool – often gathered from fences.

From these small beginnings the Eastbourne Spinners was formed in 1941. As a
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result of the experience Aileen Stace wrote Twists to Treasures in which she
explained how difficult it was for the group to find both wool and the wheels to spin it

on. In 1956 the group produced homespun jerseys for Sir Edmund Hillary for his
Antarctic expedition. Their motto was: ‘Spinning is something you do, not

Constructing Craft