Lacemaking Bobbins
Bobbin lace is a delicate lace that uses wound spools of thread (the bobbins) to weave together the shapes in the lace. more...
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The lace is held in place with very fine lace pins while being worked and is made on a lace pillow (a cloth form traditionally stuffed with straw or sawdust).
Pairs of bobbins are crossed or twisted in patterns to form meshes (also called "ground") or woven to form solid shapes, depending on the type of lace made.
Many styles of lace were made in the heyday of lacemaking (approximately the 1500s-1700s) before machine-made lace became available.
The advent of machine lace at first pushed lace-makers into more complicated designs (ones that the machines couldn't handle) and then eventually pushed them out of business almost entirely. The resurgence of lace-making is a recent phenomenon and is mostly confined to a hobby status. Guilds of modern lacemakers still meet in regions as varied as Devonshire, England and Orange County, California. In the European towns where lace was once a major industry, especially in Belgium, England, and France, lacemakers still demonstrate the craft and sell their wares, though their customer base has shifted from the wealthy nobility to the curious tourist.
Bobbin lace is also known as bone-lace. The name bone-lace comes from the fact that some bobbins were formerly made of bone. In addition bobbinet is the name for the machine made bobbin lace, made by machinery designed by John Heathcoat in 1806.
Some well-known types of bobbin lace are:
Honiton - A very fine English lace with many flowers;
Torchon - Well-known for its variety of beautiful, often geometric grounds;
Cluny - Flowers, braids and picots (tiny loops of thread) make this light and delicate;
Bedfordshire lace (Beds) - this has flowing lines and picots (to foil the machines);
Bucks point Buckinghamshire lace - very "lacy" with characteristic hexagon ground and often with a gimp thread (a heavier thread worked through for emphasis);
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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