My first attempts at bobbin lace were on a (Staffordshire) County
Guiders' Training Day where it was one of the activities on offer - that
was in March 1984. Got home all enthusiastic, "can I have a pillow for
my birthday?" (August). Husband duly obliged (still use the rectangular
straw pillow he bought me) and I spent the money his mother gave me for
my birthday on lace books. However, pregnancy got in the way (literally)
and I couldn't get on with Amy Dawson's book on Bobbin Lace for
Beginners (I now understand that that is based on Cluny not Torchon,
and it makes sense at last!) so my pillow was put aside for five years.
In 1989, the local college advertised a "Lacemaking for Absolute
Beginners" course on Tuesday mornings, which suited well as the crèche
could take 2 year olds and my just 2 year old younger daughter wanted to
know why she couldn't go to playgroup with her big sister (they had to
be 3 to start there). In 1994 I started teaching because the owner of
our small craft shop, who understood the problems of the Dryad kit,
would only sell them to people she thought would cope but "would I help
people get off the ground?" So I joined the City & Guilds course at
Lichfield College and through that learned tatting, needlelace, tambour,
etc. over the next five years.
With our family history, I traced Mom's line back to the Devises area of
Wiltshire, and thought that was possibly why I had taken to Honiton and
Malmesbury/Bucks like duck to water... no lacemakers so far, though.
(There were some weavers, though). My maternal grandmother was wardrobe
mistress to Sir Frank Benson's Royal Shakespeare Touring Company, and
apparently a very good needlewoman (she died when I was 6). Aunts on my
father's side worked for Twilleys (who produce threads and yarns) in
Stamford. Mom taught me to sew, smock, crochet and knit, and when I
needed to learn for C&G, attempted to teach me to tat (she'd taken that
up after seeing "Amy Turtle" tatting at the beginning of "Crossroads" on
TV each evening) - I eventually picked it up from books after a lot of
frustration. I learnt needlelace first; Mom decided to try it when a
pattern for a yellow rose was put in one of the cross stitch magazines
(?Needlework) - she was 74 by then. Mom never did try bobbin lace. (She
died in August 2007 -leaving me a couple of bits of tatting and an
enigma of a piece of needlelace - of her own design, I think - to
finish).
Since then, I have discovered a lot of lacemakers in the family.
Researching my husband's line, the family which we thought was purely
Nottingham (and joked about being machine lace because his grandmother
worked in one of the lace factories) turns out to have come from
Bedfordshire, and they all married lacemakers! He also has framework
knitters on his side. So, I now say I'm a lacemaker because I married
him. (We both work with pairs, it's just that being a computer/telecoms
engineer his are colour-coded!).
One of my students, who has returned to class this week after a period
of ill health, saw lace being made in Honiton about 50 years ago and
decided she wanted to learn one day. She joined my class after her son,
who had remembered, bought her an instruction book and equipment whilst
on holiday - unfortunately for her all in German, so she decided to join
a class and learn. That was a few weeks before her 85th birthday. She
will be 89 in four weeks time.... If you want to learn something, never
give up hope!
I have also taught a teenager, who learnt quickly and from her
instinctive bobbin movements (tensioning the Honiton way without being
told to do so) I asked if there were lacemakers in her family - she
later discovered that both her aunt and grandmother had been lacemakers
- so it can be an inherited ability.
Many do decide to learn to make lace after seeing it demonstrated -
whether or not they are persuaded to have a go at the time. A friend and
I go and demonstrate lacemaking at Papercraft Shows, and know that
several of the classes in the areas concerned have gained students as a
result (did any of those ladies turn up, Maureen?). We are the
"something totally different" and in that setting, not preaching to the
converted. I think if we don't get out and demonstrate at, maybe,
non-needlecraft orientated venues, and realise that older people are far
more likely to have time to learn than trying to put yet more pressure
on the children (I suspect they have more supervised "working" hours now
than they ever did before the factory acts!) then we won't have new
people coming into the craft. Without new blood, we will gradually lose
our suppliers, and guilds - as well as those with the knowledge of how
to make lace. With the summer months coming, we need to get out and get
lacemaking seen - even if it is only a case of sitting working in the
front garden - to attract new lacemakers of whatever age. Keeping it to
the comfortable confines of club rooms with maybe a notice in a local
shop isn't going to attract many, if any at all! Demonstrating is fun -
and great motivation for those who have only just learnt the basics who
get told many times during the day how clever they are!
--
Jane Partridge
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