Pins have been around for a very long time but they have never been a cheap item to purchase. A phrase that you may have come across is 'pin money' used these days to describe a job that pays badly but in the Regency / Victorian period 'pin money' was what was often left to someone to buy household essentials such as pins. Pins during the English Civil War period and the Restoration (mid to late 1600s) were often lengths of brass with a burr on the top to create the head as even this extra bit cost more money. I'm sure there are some references to pins and their costs in Romanze of the Lace Pillow by Thomas Wright. Pins as we know it are a complex thing to manufacture and this is why with the commercial need for them dropping we have seen the gradual loss of certain types of pin manufacture and pin manufacturers. When I started making lace I was able to buy 3" bodkin pins which I used to buy in packets of 10 from Hornsbys for about 2 or 3 pounds. I would take any large beads that I had and glue them just below the head to make divider pins. About 10 years ago these pins became really rare and almost unobtainable after the man manufacturer in the UK stopped making them because the market for them had become very, very small and it was not commercial viable to make them. When I've ask bobbin makers what they are now using for the pin part of their dividers that they turn, most are using thick needles. One even told me that they used to cut off the top of the pins in order to put them into the handles they made so that needles were a better idea. >From a practial point of view, do you guys stop using bent pins? If I was looking to replace my brass pins with something else then I would need something that was continuously available and was straight. Fish bones are not that straight and they are either very flexible (so bendy) when fresh or easily shatter when dried out. Thorns are normally tappered towards the point which means that they can be rather thick at one end - for me, this would cause problems if I was working on very close work then the pins would start to crowd each other. I think that I would have problems fitting them all in. L
Kind Regards Liz Baker thelace...@btinternet.com My chronicle of my bobbins can be found at my website: http://thelacebee.weebly.com/ --- On Sat, 21/5/11, Anna Binnie <l...@binnie.id.au> wrote: From: Anna Binnie <l...@binnie.id.au> Subject: Re: [lace] Pins, thorns and bone slivers To: "Alex Stillwell" <alexstillw...@talktalk.net> Cc: lace@arachne.com Date: Saturday, 21 May, 2011, 1:10 The point is well made. Pins have been around since the bronze age so the question begs to be asked why use thorns, fish bones etc when you have access to pins. Now since lace making as we know it came into being around the 15th century (please correct me if I'm a bit early here), but pins of every variety were available at this time. I should point out that at this time they were relatively expensive since reference to pins is made in wills and dowries (only expensive items are so enumerated). BUT if you consider that some forms of early lace do not require many pins the problem is solved. By the time that the point laces came along, some experienced lace makers were NOT using pins on the ground BUT on the 'pattern part only, so again a multitude of pins was not required. By the time lace makers were using hundreds or even thousands of pins the price of pins had dropped significantly. Anna - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
