Then there are the cushions — 10-12 ties a piece, and the waistcoats, about four a piece, cut up.
Her first choice is silk but polyester will do at a pinch.
David’s merino and possum jerseys hardly get a chance to get tatty. At the first sign of wear and tear, they are cut up, washed at 90 degrees, put in the dryer and shrunk into felt before being stitched into soft, warm knee rugs.
Fine wool trousers are Sanet’s latest passion. When I called to see her recently, she had cut three pair of her husband’s trousers into small triangles and was gleefully feeding them to her sewing machine. The trousers will soon have a whole new life as a bed quilt.
Labels are also hugely fascinating for Sanet. One of the waistcoats she wears to work is made of silk scraps and ties with the labels stitched on the outside as an eye-catching feature. The Pierre Cardins mix with the Marks and Spencers — it’s all very egalitarian.
Another waistcoat is made from silk embroidered in the most intricate of detail — tiny spiders in the finest of webs, ladybirds, bumble bees and butterflies in a garden, French knots the size of pinheads and delicate flowers made from ribbon.
Sanet often wears a skirt made from scraps of velvet embroidered with brightly-coloured flowers.
“They hide holes in the fabric,” she says with a laugh.
'Crazy' patchworkThere are large-scale projects too like a double bed quilt made from silk and velvet scraps using a “crazy” patchwork technique of irregular shapes. Sanet has embroidered every piece with spider webs, flowers, insects and fans which were popular symbols for the craftswomen in the 1800s. It took about a year to make and is sumptuously warm and richly colourful.
Another quilt is made from white and cream cotton embellished with exquisite French knot embroidery. Sanet has worked a drawing by her grandson James into the design by tracing the original onto the fabric and embroidering around it.
She has also used her grand-children’s drawings as the centrepiece for cushions, embroidered of course.
The living room walls are hung with artworks Sanet has created from such bizarre pastimes as mud-larking on the Thames in London. On her travels, she picked up fragments of pottery, ceramics, rusty nails and tobacco pipes along the shores of the river and glued them to white cotton fabric machine-quilted with pebble and shell shapes.
Another wall hanging is a fun abstract piece made from beads, scraps of paper, felt, thread, wool, foil, scarves, jerseys and ribbon.
Old saris, acquired at a quilting symposium in Queenstown, have been recycled into a table cover.
Sanet doesn’t limit her artistic endeavours to fabrics alone. I first met her years ago when she won a cake decorating prize at the A&P Show. I still remember being fascinated by the tiny intricate flower stamens and filaments she had reproduced in icing.
And she’s turned her hand to woodwork too. At the entranceway, stands a handsome chiffonier made from recycled rimu, a project she completed during woodwork classes at the polytechnic in 1997.
Sanet says she loses track of time when immersed in her handicrafts.
“There is very little time for negative thoughts while quilting or sewing — instead fabric, colour, cutting, piecing, arranging and rearranging fills the space, and National Radio keeps me company.
“Completing a project that is pleasing to the eye but also functional is rewarding, especially a quilt that a family member or friend can snuggle under.
“I just love recycling materials, breathing new life into old things and making something useful.
“I have a strong need to use my hands so I take small pieces to work on when I go travelling — some have been overseas and boating on Lake Waikaremoana.”
Sanet’s face lights up when she talks about her next project.
“It involves African fabrics . . . that’s all I know at the moment . . . beautiful African fabrics.”
