---- [email protected] wrote: 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?
Paper bobbins are made by rolling paper tightly to make a cylinder. More paper (longer strip) is used for the body and head and less (shorter strip) paper for the neck. It's very inexpensive because you can use magazines or even junk mail. But they're not all that quick/easy. A faster/easier bobbin (not as inexpensive) is a bamboo skewer (for grilling pieces of meat/vegetables) with biggish wood or plastic beads glued on--one for a head and several for the body, with the bare skewer as the neck. Some people have made bobbins by whittling chopsticks. They can be gotten cheap, but those may need a good sanding to prevent splinters. There's also a kind of metal nail that's fairly thick/long (by nail standards) and has a second ridge below the flat head. That makes a decent neck unless you're using really long lengths of thick thread (the neck isn't all that big). Most beginners probably don't need more than a yard or two on each bobbin, so that should be fine. You just need to find out the name of the nail to get. For very short-term, you can use old-fashioned clothes pegs, the cylindrical kind, with two parallel "legs", not the spring-loaded clips. Because there's no proper neck, they're not as nice as the other options, but they work. Robin P. Los Angeles, California, USA [email protected] - 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
