As far as I know, I am the first person in my family to do bobbin lace.
Although my mother and aunts did knitting, crochet etc.
I never saw bobbin lace being made until we had a holiday in the Lake
District, and we dropped into a small
craft fair in the middle of nowhere. And there was a lady, doing bobbin
lace.
I had a long chat with her, and suddenly realized that the women's caps
that I'd often seen in museums and old photos
were mainly hand-made lace!
Even then it was not until I bought a Dryad kit, and tried to teach
myself in 1994. I found a mixed needlecraft class locally
(adult education) and joined it. There was one other very elderly lady
who also wanted to learn bobin lace, but she struggled
and gave up when the teacher belittled her in front of the group. I left
with her and we tried to teach each other.
She gave up, saying she was too old to learn something new and so
complcated. I did make some pieces, and looking back
I wondered how I managed them.
Because of workload, bobbin lace and other crafts took a long rest,
until I was made redundant 3 years ago.
I fished my lace things out again, and found another local lace maker
(also on this list, so she will know whom I am talking
about who dragged me along to two local groups and Thursday evening
classes. The rest is history.
Have a lot to learn left, but am tackling torchon, beds and bucks point.
Perhaps Honiton one day.
My nephew in the Netherlands has recently set up a family tree website,
and lo! there is a photo of my great-grandmother
with a traditional Dutch lace-cap on her crown. Don't know whether she
made it herself, she died 80odd years ago.
Agnes Boddington - Elloughton UK
-
To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line:
unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to
[email protected]
