Southland Museum's Lace exhibition

This week, I visited the Gentle Art of the Lacemaker exhibition at the Southland Museum. Our own local lacemaker, Janet Macrae, has a good portion of her private collection on display there and this was a great opportunity to see it.

The exhibition features works from 19th century as well as modern day lacemakers. In historical times, lacemaking was not only the domain of women but also of children as they had small fingers and a lot of time on their hands. The patterns can be complex, the amount of bobbins seemingly infinite, and the attention to detail overwhelming. What fine skills these women and children had.

All of the pieces can be appreciated on their own without aid of magnification. But if you really want to lose yourself in the splendour of the patterns, bring a magnifying glass!

The exhibition is on until 6 June at the Southland Museum. If you want to find out more about lace, visit the NZ Lace Society website.

We're open Wednesdays and Sundays, 2pm-4pm, and by request. Your comments are always welcome!

Military Memories 2010

Well, the Hats and Scarves display has been taken down, and now we have the Military Memories display ready to start tomorrow on Anzac Day and running through to 9 May.

We did a military display two years ago, and it seemed successful, so we are going for it again. This time, there is a lot less memorabilia (no bunkers or uniforms), but some new photos will be on display which we think you'll find interesting.

One little fact that I found while researching some of the items was that by 1916, about 70 men from the Otautau area had signed up for military service. That's a huge amount. I'm still doing research in the Otautau Standard to gather information on casualties, send-offs and welcome-homes. We already have a list of names but would like to create a resource that provides more than just names but family background and so on.

The museum will be open from 8am to 4pm on Anzac Day so if you're around, please do drop by!

We're open Wednesdays and Sundays, 2pm-4pm, and by request. Your comments are always welcome!