DUCHESSE SET

Duchess set comprising large ovoid centrepiece and three round doileys. Each is of white cotton with crocheted edges and has a lazy-daisy border of flowers in colours of pink, mauve and blue. Violet Raven (nee Weisheit) was employed at the Mills & Ware biscuit and cake factory in Mandurah Rd (now South Terrace), Fremantle, between 19.. and 19... Violet enjoyed crocheting and might see a pattern and buy it on the way home from the factory. She would do the edges of a piece of work then offer it to the girls with whom she worked: "if you like to put a centre in (something Violet did not like doing), you can have it". Violet was taught to crochet by her sister Ivy, three years her senior. Two street along from the factory was a little haberdashery shop, right next door to the men's barber, Oscar Stack. He was known in Fremantle as the "Vicar on the Motor Bike" (of the Reorganised Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints). Girls from the factory would drop in to see Oscar and look in the haberdashery shop, laybying handwork or things for their glory box until pay day when they could pick them up. The Duchesse set was bought here and Violet worked it at nights by candlelight at her home in .... Violet worked at Mills & Ware at much the same time as Mabel Pilling, "The Factory Worker's Daughter" in NOTHING TO SPARE.

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History Collection

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