DIY | Harakeke Whetū (Flax Star) Garland

Last updated on 18 December 2024

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Turning the harakeke whetū into a flax star garland!

If you cast you mind back to last week, I shared how I rediscovered the joys of flax weaving and made some harakeke whetū (flax stars). It was a lot of fun sitting down one afternoon and simply folding away.

I had the idea of turning them into a flax star garland before I started making them, but my original plan was to lightly spray paint them with gold or bronze spray paint after they had dried out. Alas, after waiting for them to dry out (about a week) and getting the spray can ready, I realised that I had run out of paint. And with stores still shut here in New Zealand, I couldn’t go out and get more. I decided I’d turn them into a garland anyway, and later on, if I feel like I still want to paint them, I can take them down, spray them, and rehang them.

It was really easy turning them into a garland, but I thought I’d show you how I did it.

What you’ll need to make a flax star garland:

• The flax stars you’ve already made
• Scissors
• Embroidery thread (or similar)
• A needle

While I had thought I might use fishing wire to string them together so the string remained invisible, I opted for a goldy/bronze/brown embroidery thread so it stood out more. I’m glad I did, as I quite like the look. But you can use whatever you’d like to string the stars together. My only thought would be to make sure it’s not too thick; it needs to be threaded through a needle, and also go through the flax. A thin ribbon might work, but I would stick to threads or string.

It’s incredibly straight forward to make the flax star garland. Simply thread your needle, choose a point of the star that you’d like it to hang from, poke the needle (carefully!) through the point, close to the tip of the point but not too close that it rips. Pull the thread through and repeat!

You can tie knots on either side of the flax star point if you don’t want them to slide around, or leave them open-ended so you can slide them. I opted for the latter, as I wanted to move them around once I had hung them, so they were sitting where I wanted them. Also, I found that the embroidery thread didn’t slip and slide, so the stars stayed in place even without knotting the ends.

Whether you’re threading them close together or evenly spaced, once they’re all strung, trim the ends of the embroidery thread so you have enough to hang them up on hooks or pins.

Last step: hang up your flax star garland!

And then send me a picture!