Found in a Sewing Basket III

Now, this is getting really interesting. Yesterday's photograph has been confirmed as the 10th Light Horse (a Militia at that stage) in camp at Kilmany, in Gippsland, Victoria. The story starts HERE and finishes HERE.

And I have been working me way onwards through the sewing boxes. This one is rather nice.

It is beautifully made from cane, I thin commercially, and extensively padded inside:

Amongst the interesting threads are some Swiss rayon:

and some Mount Mellick thread that is obviously Australian, given the Kangaroo, but no other branding.

But the piece that interests me most, that others might discard, is this:

I want to find out if this is netting cord from WWII - women around here sat making camouflage nets during WWII.

Can you imagine the stories that could be woven around these needlework boxes. The boys in the photos from the first needlework box went off to WWI. The next generation of women sat making the nets.

There is a sewing machine in the Stratford museum which belonged to Alice Mitchell. She was the local dressmaker, and lost three brothers and her fiancee in WWI. She sat at home making hundreds of shirts for soldiers at The Front on that machine.

Imagine the stories that could be written with these artifacts as jumping-off points.