Priceless Treasure /
All over the country we have museums filled with articles of historical interest and items preserved with loving care so that history will live on for future generations. We discover one with a difference in Geraldine.
Inside Geraldine’s very own lace museum
While the craft of hand-fashioned lace is no longer in vogue with today’s technology allowing for a grander more mass production, the story of lace is fascinating. Stepping inside Lillia’s Lace Museum (named after Jean Hall’s lacemaking grandmother), you will be amazed at Jean’s collection with some displayed laces dating back to the 17th century – and they all have a story to tell. Not just dry historical facts but fascinating tales of people and places which make the museum come alive, giving insight into how people lived.
In times past, lace was a valuable treasure worn by the wealthy as jewellery. For the poor, the lace they made sometimes became a currency exchange for food.
Jean has an intimate knowledge of each piece of lace and is full of enthusiasm and stories which make her collection into a living museum. Everything is beautifully and artistically displayed in showcases or framed as glass pictures. She has lace from all over the world, some inherited, some donated and some picked up from odd unlikely shops.
She herself was taught by an elderly lace maker. In turn Jean taught her children and grandchildren the art, including one grandson who enjoyed the activity until he was about 12 years old.
Jean first learned the value of lace when she was told she must never allow her lace-trimmed petticoat to rip as she walked to school because her grandmother had made the lace and it was very valuable. The seed was sown that beautiful treasures could be made from a small reel of thread.
The most poignant era of lace making was in the 1800s,
when children as young as five were apprenticed and worked from dawn to dusk in a lace school. The pittance the children received helped their families survive.
I have watched Jean make lace and am fascinated by how intricate a process it is. She has a very impressive length of Honiton lace (7 foot) made in England that was given to her, and it is estimated that it would have taken five hours to make one centimetre square.
Lace making and good eyesight go together. Before electricity, lace makers would sit outside their homes to get the full benefit of natural light, and at night they used an ingenious method of filtering a candle’s light through a global glass ball filled with water. The candle was placed so it shone through the glass, magnifying the light.
Lace makers have their own distinctive terminology – intriguing names which sound as if they could be part of America’s Wild West: spangles, beads, bobbins and prickings. Bobbins and a pillow are essential for lace making. Many bobbins are needed in the construction of one piece and the pillow is vital to work the lace on.
I find the bobbins, usually made from wood or bone, most fascinating. They are long and slender and can be decorated with different words or designs. Their value lies not only in the material they are made from, but the design or wording attached. Back in the 1800s it was quite common for a young fellow to give his girl a bobbin as a gift. In the museum there is an amazing collection of bobbins, some inlaid with precious metals such as silver or pewter. Jean, who is also an artist, now provides a modern Kiwi version for contemporary lace makers: she decorates wooden bobbins with miniature New Zealand native birds or flowers.
Jean has a very impressive length of Honiton lace. It is estimated that it would have taken five hours to make one centimetre square.
Lillia’s Lace Museum is open by appointment only, phone 03 693 9312.