Textiles

Described at the time as ‘the first of its kind produced in these colonies’, the wedding gown examined in this article embodies significance beyond its sartorial form; it constitutes a multi-faceted historical artefact positioned at the nexus of design, commerce, technology, identity and social history. Petrina Killey examines the gown's materiality, background and symbolic resonance within the colonial context.

Embroidered samplers worked in various stitches by girls or young women to demonstrate their needlework skills. Typically, samplers include the alphabet, some mottoes, and simple pictures and patterns, often with the maker’s name and the date.This mid-Victorian sampler is a tribute to Thomas Rice (1808–1887), patriarch of the Rice family in South Australia, with an elevation view of his single-storied home Rose Cottage at Lyndoch in the Barossa, plus plans of its fenced stockyard andgarden, with paths and ornamental borders.

From either ends of the globe, Portière 1901 has been rediscovered. Over 120 years ago, it was created to commemorate the colony of South Australia joining the Federation of Australia. The Portière was commissioned and made by the first women in the world to gain both the right to vote and to stand for parliament. The impressive 233.0 x 178.0 cm embroidered silk object represents the pinnacle of a golden age of Art Needlework embroidery. However, questions surround it. Just seven years after their enfranchisement, why did South Australian women give members of the British royal family an object that was ostensibly a domestic curtain? Even more intriguing, how did it fall so far into obscurity within the Royal Collection itself that when enquiries were made in 2023, it could no longer be located? This article tells the forgotten story of its origins and in doing so, places it back into the colonial history of the Australian Arts & Crafts Movement.

Australiana is sometimes accused of being exclusive, publishing articles only on fine, expensive, early-19th century art and artefacts associated with famous men or families from the Eastern States. South Australian contributor Peter Lane delves into the makers and designers of early 20th century crochet lace, who entered a crochet competition run by a Melbourne newspaper. All were women, many of them married in working- class families. All the women were proud of their delicate crochet work, which brought a degree of creativity, artistry and refinement to their otherwise basic homes. One of them, Nell Dyson, even walked five miles (8 km) into town (and back) to get cotton thread, while her husband had the luxury of a push bike to ride into town to post her entry in The Weekly Times crochet design competition, an event that the proprietors hoped would encourage aspiring lace artists to incorporate Australian motifs into their designs.

Prodigious Australiana contributor Glenn R. Cooke is well known through his professional interests in Queensland art, decorative arts and social history. But that does not define Glenn; he loves ballroom dancing and gardens, as well as pursuing a sideline in collecting artefacts relating to his home state. This includes 1540 souvenir textiles which have been acquired by the State Library of Queensland. Its current exhibition presents 214 printed tea towels to show how the Sunshine State has been presented in popular imagery over the last 70 years.