After the star wars exhibition, the boys wandered off to do what boys do and Tess and I went downstairs to the lace room. The brochure said the Powerhouse has the biggest public collection of lace in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm not sure what I was expecting and was a bit surprised to find a small room, tucked away in a corridor on the ground floor. You would have to search for it. I don't think you'd just stumble into it. However, what a interesting place for us people interested in strings and twine, threads and crafts. The room is managed by different volunteers who are rostered on from one of the lace making guilds. Bev who showed us around is a member of the Tatting guild, and was doing a whole day volunteer shift.
You'll see she has a bobbin in her hand, there are examples of her work on the table, a new book from America with patterns she's trying out and in the little plastic box to the right hand side are her giveaways - wee butterflies. We were given a gray one and a pink one as we left. All up we spent the whole of our allocated free time in the lace room, before we had to meet up with the boys and head off to Nana's farm.
We took a look through the dozens of drawers, each organised by type of lace, in a kind of history of lacemaking style. There are pieces of lace that are hundreds of years old. And as usual, you marvel at the skill and time that has gone into these beautiful pieces. These drawers represent a tiny fraction of their collection and presumably those who study lace are able to arrange special viewings. We were fascinated by the metal lace, which is naturally enough at the "modern" end of the timeline.
After we'd looked through the drawers, Bev showed us some of her pieces of work and I particularly loved the bookmarks.
Though these doilies are rather special as well.
Then we finished up with Tess having a demonstration and mini lesson of lacemaking.
She is being shown the "move them as pairs", can you see how the bobbins are colour coded? And there's and under/over motion that happens as well. The long ribbon that is being created has all been made by children and visitors to the room. Their names are recorded in that black folder and eventually the Powerhouse is going to make something with the ribbon of lace and their names will be recorded somewhere. Tess was given a little certificate to say she had made lace at the Powerhouse museum. After my visit, I felt deeply curious and wouldn't mind giving it a go sometime - maybe a class down the track. I know there's a guild in Canberra which runs classes. Someday. Maybe.
