Bobbin Management
When we were in Bruges on July 4 in 2009, I put 2 American flags in front of
our campsite. When we were in London on July 4, 2009, I wanted to have a T
shirt with an American flag, but couldn’t find one that 1) fit 2) wasn’t a
cheap rag and 3) didn’t have political statements I don’t buy into.
Stupidly I set myself a deadline of June 30, which is the Longs Park,
Lancaster, PA Fourth of July Concert, which features the 1812 Overture with
live cannon, followed by fireworks. Free. DH and the Newfoundland will be
leaving early. The noise gives him a migraine, and Sirius does not deserve
to be that scared, even for a Newf. July 4 is the American Independence
Day, and a time when even those neutral to patriotism tend to celebrate the
United States. Every country has something like that. There’s also
Memorial Day, May 30, or close to it, when we honor the soldiers who have
fought in our wars, and Veteran’s Day, November 11, when we honor the
veterans who have fought in our wars. To say nothing of Flag Day, June 14.
Flags are more than acceptable at these times.
I decided I needed an American Flag to put on a T shirt for these holidays.
So it had a use. I decided to download a picture of the American Flag meant
for children to color. It fits on an 8.5 x 11 inch page, and is a bit
smaller, but not much. I needed a BIG flag. The stars were easy. Long
snowflakes from a Binche lace book. I modified the edges so there weren’t
any half snowflakes.
For thread I used Aurifil Mako 28, doubled. It needed 8 pairs to do each
stripe, including the worker pair, and that would mean 104 pairs. I didn’t
need any more pairs on a 22 inch pillow. So I doubled the thread.
I finished the stars fairly quickly. They are white with an extra silver
thread for sparkle. The flag is to go on a navy blue T shirt, which will be
the background for the stars. That went well.
Then there was the matter of 104 pairs on a 22 inch pillow with a large
roller. The pillow was made by the husband of a local lace teacher on the
model of a Danish pillow. Nice pillow at a good price, but 22" in diameter.
Once I completed the stripes next to the stars, I’d be going across 104
pairs, 208 bobbins. Using holders, I’d be forever taking bobbins in and out
of holders, spending more time at that than on moving the bobbins. This
called for some thought.
A few years ago there was a topic on Arachne of bobbin management. David
Collyer from Australia and I discussed this at some length off list. We
were thinking trays. Problem with trays is that the bobbins could easily
roll off the trays, either at the bulb end or from the sides. Yet they need
to be able to move across the tray to another. In my situation the 8 pairs
always stay in the same place relative to the other sets of 8 pairs, a
rather unique situation. And let me tell you, I can now do cloth stitch
like nobody’s business. Toward the end I had to absolutely drag myself to
the pillow. Doing relatively long projects gives one some sense of what
those poor lacemakers did to make so little money to eke out a subsistence
living. Only the thought that I wanted to wear the T shirt to the concert
on Sunday with the 1812 Overture with live cannon and fireworks kept me
going. It took about 2 weeks to sew in the ends of all 208 + bobbins. It’s
not something you can do all at once, as fatigue started to make me sloppy.
Anyhow, bobbin management. Giving it a lot of thought, coming from an
engineering family, I finally went to JoAnn’s a national fabric store, not
much good for fabric, as I think the quality can be poor, but great for
other things, and purchased a length of 20 gauge vinyl. This has several
advantages. You can see through it. It is flexible. It molds itself to
where it is if it is warm. It is relatively inexpensive, and can be cut
with a scissor. After some experimentation, I finally ended up with 8
identical pieces of vinyl. The outside is approximately the same arc as the
pillow edge. The inside arc, however, is much flatter. This may be a
matter of personal preference, but it seemed to me to work best. Once I had
one piece that worked, I traced it on the vinyl with a Sharpie permanent
marker. I don’t think the line often was touched by thread. If there is a
concern, one could always cut inside the line to eliminate the marker, and
use only one piece as a template only. I stacked up the pieces and put 4
pinholes in, through all thicknesses, one pinhole near each corner, just so
I could stack them up with all the bobbins inside the long pins in case of
moving. This worked for a car trip and 4 trays. I put 2 stripes worth of
bobbins, 16 pairs of either Binche or Duchess bobbins on each tray. The
Binche bobbins worked better, but I didn’t have enough for all Binche. The
bobbins took up about half of the tray when arrayed. The ends just stiffly
flop on top of each other, rolling over the other trays on the side, with
the bobbins on the pillow, with enough room to move them from side to side.
and if it was warm and I left it, they would gently stick, vinyl to vinyl.
One tray only had one stripe. That’s 7 trays, as there are 13 stripes, the
last being a top in case I wanted to move the pillow with the bobbins
stored.
One thing that was immediately apparent was that the sound of the bobbins
changed. Instead of that delicious clicking, it sounded like a heavy rain
on a tin roof.
Remember that I’m moving across all the pairs at each row. As I told some
people, “If I were a weaver, I’d weave the stripes, but since I’m a
lacemaker, I’m doing it this way.” On each side of the roller, I stacked
the vinyl trays. The tray I'm working on is in front of the roller. After
3 trays, you need to support the edge close to the center, and the top of my
pin box, which has a finial, did a very nice job of that.
This system worked. Not perfectly, and not without bobbins moving around a
bit, as they can do in a bobbin holder for Continental bobbins, but it
worked. It was an unusual circumstance, but for this particular
application, it made the job move along at an acceptable pace.
I have uploaded a picture of the finished flag and the vinyl trays in use to
the Arachne photostream. If someone can tell me how to load the pictures
into my set, I’d really appreciate it. I have instructions, but I think
things have changed since then.
Lyn in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, where it’s going to be another warm,
muggy day with probably thunderstorms. Same for the concert on Sunday,
which would be a great shame.
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