In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Helen Bell
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
but add into the mix, who was the bright spark who thought of
little pointed bobbins for Honiton Lace? I totally understand the purpose
of the pointed tail (to facilitate sewings) and their lightness (the
incredibly fine thread), but I wonder why they are so different again in
shape?
It was probably evolution in finding the best tools to do the job. I
would suspect that bobbins here probably did start similar to the
continentals, as are Bucks thumpers. But the need to have a lot of
bobbins on the pillow (especially for the finer Bucks), and the cost of
fashioning continental style bobbins out of wood, compared to our
thinner straighter Midlands, may have something to do with it. Downton
bobbins are also on the straight, thin, side, but are not spangled.
Honitons are finer and smaller than Downton, with pointed ends - I'm
sure we've all said at one point or other "I could do with a bobbin
shaped like....." and then someone else sees ours and more are made...
(squares, hookies, etc being on the modern wish list). Spangled
bobbins, if I remember correctly, came into being before Bedfordshire
lace appeared in the 1850s.
Hand made Lace is assumed to have come to England from Italy. There is
plenty of argument between Mrs Bury Palliser's view that it came to us
with refugees from Belgium, (the same refugees credited with introducing
the nailing, and probably other, industries here - could we do anything
for ourselves before the late 1500s?) and the probable sea route from
Italy, calling in at Plymouth and Exeter on the way to the low countries
that Dr John Yallop put forward. The actual, primary source, history has
not shown itself to be recorded, and so any lace history we do read in
books is likely to be based on assumptions, and may not be accurate.
On the other hand, machine made lace did start here and cross to the
continent, is this what is confusing Mikki?
--
Jane Partridge
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