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One special group of items at the Waikouaiti Coast Heritage Centre tells a story curator Kay Lang says may be ''not interesting for blokes, but great for women''.

• Main feature: Giving a sense of place and context

It includes a sewing machine brought to New Zealand in the 1870s by the family of a local church minister

As well there is an early needlework box and a set of lace samples.

''This is a sample that girls and children would have had to prepare, probably at school, to show their skills and to show their future husbands they could sew.''

Mrs Lang says small museums like Waikouaiti's are social history museums.

''On the whole this museum displays what the people's lives were like from the 1840s, really until the 1950s.

''I believe that the stories, for the women on this occasion, are important for people to know about.''