Fellow Spiders, Well, now I am even more depressed. This week I got my email from Tracy about the end of The Lacemaker, but until catching up on my Arachne reading this morning I was unaware of Lacy Susan closing her doors. I hope the new owner will be able to continue without too much of a reduction of the stock.
I read with interest all the discussion about the future of lacemaking and the ideas for recruiting new people, and I just thought I would add my 2 cents. I think the idea of expanding the demonstrating to other areas is a good one. I belong to an on-line quilting group and I couldn't help but notice over the years that both art quilts and crazy quilts are enjoying a big upswing in interest, and both employ a lot of lace. In my group, there was an increasing interest in the lace itself-- dying it, starching to create 3-D effects, and exploring different types of lace to embellish quilt projects. As interest picked up, a couple of members learned to tat, and then recruited more tatters by posting links to on-line tutorials and blogs about tatting. These people then made small motifs to use in their quilted projects. By posting the pictures of the finished projects, MORE people wanted to learn to tat to make their own embellishments. It seems to me, getting lacemakers to demonstrate at quilt shows and at fabric stores frequented by quilters would be a great way to find some new lacemakers in the quilting world. Earlier today, Lyn asked Also, even at $1 a bobbin, it's not possible to send them home with a student who can't buy them on his/her own. Does anyone have an idea for homemade bobbins? Something that's quick to make, relatively sturdy? What are paper bobbins, are there other ideas out there? I have just finished thinking about this because I recently volunteered to teach an on-line tutorial on beginning bobbin lace for the quilting message board. Every Friday, someone volunteers to teach a skill they have. It can be a small project, a new technique to accomplish a traditional pattern, a new skill, whatever. My class will span 2-3 Fridays and teach the basics of setting up, terminology, basic stitches, and a small easy project. Because the people interested have no background and don't know yet if they will like it enough to invest in nice pillows, bobbins, etc., I decided to have them make the bobbins and pillow. Though the class is not scheduled till January, there has been quite a bit of interest already, and many have expressed a desire to start making their supplies now. Pillows are easy, some insulation foam, felt, and a cotton cover. I looked around the internet and found instructions for making bobbins from a wood dowel, heavy wrapping paper, and pony beads. It is easy and inexpensive. Some people went strictly utilitarian using brown paper bags as their wrapping paper, some got really creative and used fancy scrapbooking paper and made their own color coordinated beads using polymer clay. They were beautiful! I also played around with the bead idea and came up with this fast, easy, and cheap bobbin: 3/16 inch wooden dowel--- 29 cents at craft store like Michael's 1 box wooden beads-- $3.99 at Walmart Cut dowel with craft knife in 4.5 inch lengths Glue 6 beads on one end of dowel for the handle Glue 1 bead on opposite end for head It took me about 10 minutes to cut and sand the dowel, and about 15 seconds to add the beads. I ended up with very attractive wooden bead bobbins that were very extremely easy and very reasonably priced. 2 boxes of beads will make 28 bobbins, So for under $10 you can have 14 pairs which will handle quite a few beginner edgings, samplers, or bookmarks. >From the feedback I have gotten so far, I think we have 2 challenges when it comes to recruiting more lacemakers who in turn can support more suppliers. About half the people I spoke with in the group didn't know what bobbin lace was. The other half knew about it, but the price of a start up kit was too high for them when they had no idea if they would enjoy doing it. So first we must be seen and noticed to generate the interest, second we must present inexpensive alternatives to make sure people realize that they can try it out without much expense. Then if they like it and want to continue they may wish to invest in more substantial purchases, but if they don't like it, they aren't out $75- $150 for a beginners kit. - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://community.webshots.com/user/arachne2003
