If you peep into the dressing room at the rear of the Lobethal Centennial Hall on any Monday morning between now and June 12th, you will find a group of between 12 and 20 volunteers learning the exacting art of tapestry weaving.

These volunteers are learning to increase their own skill base and to participate in the weaving of the historic tapestry of LOBETHAL. The fabulous design is all embracing and shows what gives Lobethal the right to call itself a historic Adelaide Hills township with an interesting past and vibrant present. Much public input went into the design and we are almost ready to show it to you.

The Lobethal Tapestry Weavers, Katharina Urban, Wilma Bajka, Elly Webb and Christine Mackintosh, have recently received grants from the Adelaide Hills Council and Country Arts S.A.

These grants are to help finance the Weavers through the design phase and the teaching phase and other grants and sponsors are being sought to finance the weaving of a large tapestry, which is going to be a community event / activity and will be 250cms by 160cms in size!

The first step is the design phase, so, on Sunday, February 3rd in the dressing room at the rear of the Lobethal Centennial Hall from 10.00am until 1.00pm, Elly Webb will be listening to members of the community who have ideas for inclusion in the tapestry.

The Adelaide Hills Council have received a copy of the Significance Assessment from the Lobethal Heritage Association. The 26 page document by Dr Pauline Payne confirms the significance of the contents of Building 19 at the Old Onkaparinga Woollen Mill in Lobethal. The document of over 50 pages contains the inventory of the collection and recommendations by Dr Payne.

We are grateful to the National Library of Australia for the grant we received last year to undertake this work. Volunteers have already begun removing metal from the samples of woven cloth and listing them. This is a massive job. We are also hoping for a grant to replace the old folders and sleeves with acid free storage. A lot of the work is labour intensive but getting to it still remains a huge problem.