Thursday, September 24, 2020

Bobbin Lace

 


bobbin lace supplies


Someone moving contacted me about their bobbin lace supplies and asked if the guild would be interested.  Doug went and picked it up and it now resides behind the Leclerc loom until I have the time and energy to go through it.

There is a stack of books that might get sold as a fund raiser, but I suggested to one guild member that between the pillows that were donated and my own, I could potentially do a small (4 students max) class and teach torchon lace.  If we all wore masks, kept good distance, we could make it work.  In the new year.  After our guild sale is over.

I've been saying for years that I want to get back to making lace and this might just be the spur to finally do it.

I've been having a hard time trying to justify making bobbin lace.  It isn't much in vogue these days and is very time consuming.  To make good lace, you really need to use fine threads.

But what constitutes 'good' lace?  What may have been true before, may not be true now.  So while I let the packages of books and supplies sit, I am simmering thoughts of what lace is and what it might be now, in these pandemic times.  

Trim for masks?  Possible.  I suspect we are going to be advised to wear a mask for quite a while and why not make them pretty?

Things change and morph, depending on what is happening at the time.  And adding beauty is never a bad thing.

Plus the advantage to teaching beginners is that I can use nice big fat yarn (as in 2/8 cotton size - that's fat for lace).  

It seems the universe has a way of showing me the direction I should be going - like when weaving kept showing up in my life.  Spinning wheels.  Now bobbin lace.  I sense a trend.

2 comments:

Jacquie said...

Needing to use fine thread to make good lace, depends entirely on your definition of 'good lace'. More an more people are turning to making lace with heavier threads and coloured threads, not because they can't see the work or don't have the patience, but because the end result needs to be relevant to modern lifestyles.
On the Stand for The Lace Guild at the National Exhibition Centre in the UK a couple of years ago, where we had a display which included white, fine lace, antique lace and contemporary lace in many scales and used for many project including clothing, we were approached by so many people who had made bobbin lace 10, 15, 20 years ago and said to us, if they'd realised they could make lace in wool, in thicker threads, in synthetic threads, in large and small scale, they would never stopped making it but they just didn't have any use for any more bookmarks, handkerchief edges, mats or collars.
At the biggest end his link shows heavy rope bobbin lace used as a room divider in a restaurant, http://www.interiorcravings.com/stix-by-a2-interior-studio/ with more photos and a description of the work in progress further down and this one http://www.mantzalin.com/perseus-perseids-beta-persei-or-82033-etsy-lace-screens.html shows the screens in place in the Etsy headquarters.
I hope your classes run and you introduce many more people to this very free form of off- loom weaving.

Laura Fry said...

Yes, redefining in my own life what bobbin lace is, or could be. It’s a process and th8ngs can, indeed must, evolve.