Actually Jeri, you have a very good point about the pillows. If one looks at the photographs of lacemakers of yore from the East Midlands (Beds, Bucks, Herts, Oxfordshire from the late 1800's and early 1900's), their pillows are almost (not quite) like honiton pillows and are much deeper than the cookies we use today. They would sit their pillows in a pillow horse, so the spangles had the function of weight/tension on the threads. And it may have been that many of wood bobbins were light and didn't add the tension needed to the threads, so some bright spark thought of using some buttons or glass beads.
I have a photo of my grandmother from the 1960s making lace (in the UK) and even her pillow in those days was flat bottomed but quite domed - more so than what I use today - and my favourite pillow is slightly domed. I find it somewhat aggravating to use my largest cookie pillow - which really is just a flat disc, rather than domed. I like my bobbins to hang a little off my work, and on this pillow, which has a large piece of lace on it, the bobbins just lay there and the spangles don't earn their keep (except to look pretty). Helen, Aussie in Denver - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
