Hello Jeri, and everyone I love using wool fabric, batting, fleece, but one of the strongest reasons against - is allergy; for some, they just can't be near it, even if a layer of cotton is between them and the wool. A second one is availability - there simply might not be a source accessible to the lacemaker; a close second is m*ths (I spell that quietly, because they lurk near my stash). If I leave woollen anything untended and exposed, the moths will find it.
I first learned of using ethafoam, a synthetic, at a museum symposium on storage, where ethylene-based storage was recommended. It is very damp where I live (and raining right now), and I do have a lot of ethafoam pillows; all will have a layer of wool or sythetic buffer in some form or another - sometimes synthetic batting, if that is what is at hand, and a cotton cover over that. Yes, pins will rust if left too long in any pillow around here, even in the wool-stuffed bolster :( so my solution is to deal with the lace sooner than later. If I do have a project that lies untouched for weeks and months, it is a sign to me that I'm not really interested in finishing it, and I'd better cut it off! Polyesters have improved considerably since they were first introduced to consumers. The thread I bought the other day handled like cotton, and the synthetic buffer products (batting, stuffing and so on) feel less plasticky than they used to. We can now get silk battings, though how that would be as a buffer on a lace pillow, I haven't tried (I have used unspun silk as stuffing, when wool would be a problem, and that worked well) So whereas yes I agree you can recommend that wool is the best - other options are valid too. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 7:17 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > If there is an argument against using wool felt padding on lace pillows, I > would like to learn about it. > -- Bev in Shirley BC, near Sooke on beautiful Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
