As a last treat for the Historical Sew-Fortnightly ‘By the Sea’ week, I thought you might enjoy seeing the one piece* of vintage swimwear in my collection: a late ’30s, or 1940s knit wool swimsuit from the Canterbury of New Zealand.   (*Actually, that’s not entirely true.  I do have a couple of late ’50s/early ’60s swimsuits – but this one might be as early as 1938, so replicating it would be within the HSF guidelines). NZ, as a major wool producer, had a number of its own woollen mills and manufacturers in the 19th and throughout the 20th century.  One of these was the Canterbury Woollen Mills, based in Ashburton, just south of Christchurch, in the  Canterbury region of the South Island.  The mill was actually known as the Ashburton Woollen Mills from its founding in 1885 until 1890.  I am relatively certain that it was this mill that produced Canterbury swimwear (just like the Roslyn Woollen Mill produced Roslyn swimwear) Protectionist laws throughout most of the 20th century made importing clothes prohibitively expensive, …