Actually, that was a wonderful post, one that I enjoyed reading from beginning
to end! Ha ha, besides loving the results of your research, I also struggle to
relearn violin and learn flute! Good luck with everything! Glad to here your
health is good!
Cearbhael (aka Angel)
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jul 13, 2020, at 12:10 AM, Brian Lemin wrote:
>
> Covid has a lot to answer for and this letter is one of them. I am often
> asked about where my bobbin interest came from etc. The simple answer is I
> started to make bobbins as result of seeing a church member's pillow at tea
> one week end. Now here the rest of it. I hope the arachne editor will be
> Covid-like lenient on me for this mostly off topic post.
>
> When i started all this bobbin stuff, some 25 years ago after i retired, I
> had no idea this is where it would take me. I was just asking questions
> about antique bobbins that few people could answer, so i started to research
> the answers myself.
>
> Arachne has always been my greatest source of interest and help, and we (as a
> group ) did 3 or 4 little bits of research ourselves which I wrote up and put
> on my Angel-fire web page (now more or less defunct). I then started to find
> books on bobbins or lace, that were very helpful.
>
> The of course then there was the Springetts revolution and that seemed to
> change everything. More people began collecting, their work revealed the
> importance of local history contained in or around bobbins. More importantly
> it opened my eyes to what appeared to me was a whole field of investigation
> of bobbins.
>
> I had a few mentors and one special bobbin friend, without whose help and
> access to her wonderful collection of bobbins, very little of what is
> published under my name could have been achieved.
>
> Even today she remains reluctant for her name to be mentioned, however I have
> tried very hard to acknowledge her help as a knowledgeable collector,
> restorer and curator. She is also a valued writer of local history on
> bobbins and her work has appeared in many magazines local to her area of
> living. However i am certain that her collection is the most complete and
> best quality bobbin collection in private hands that is current in the UK. I
> think it is fair to say that for different reasons, we are both slowing down,
> but what a huge amount we have achieved. (and we are both fabulously rich as
> the result of it! smile.)
>
> East midland bobbins took a long time for me (us) to get our heads around,
> but that has culminated in the web publication of a bobbin dictionary
> (shorthand title) ( www.brianlemin.com) together with a collectors guide for
> East Midland bobbins which was an excellent showcase for her bobbins.
>
> It would be wrong for me to say that we then went our separate ways, far from
> it, she is still trying to help me get my head around S Bucks bobbins, but it
> is true that my East Devon and Downton project was a bit left field from her
> collection.
>
> The East Devon part of that project has resulted in a Collectors Guide that
> is in the hands of a volunteer arachne person editor. I feel desperate for
> her! She told me of a typo in one of my webdocs publications and said that
> she was an editor in her other life, "then" she received from me a 100 page
> manuscript to edit! (Beware of what you write to me about!)
>
> The Downton part of that project is of necessity a long range project. Those
> genres are hard to come by and a kind volunteer and museum curator are
> working hard on my behalf to extend my Downton Bobbin database and "teach me"
> about them. That is now a slow project because of Covid, but I hope there
> will eventually be a "Collectors Guide to Downton lace-making bobbins" They
> are fascinating, just you wait and see. [if you know why a number of then are
> sequentially numbered please tell me!)
>
> I do not intend to "do" 20th century bobbins (see Springett)
>
> But there remains the Malmsbury bobbins, plain bobbins to almost boredom.
> Then the "job" I started all that time ago will be complete. Sure there are
> still pockets of research and sharing to do but I aim to slow down. Do a bit
> more art patch-working, become a better guitar player (I am a wanna-be jazz
> guitarist( which will never happen, I don't do the practice!) I am making a
> clavichord and that will make me relearn to art of reading music. ( Love
> classical music and Jazz and very little in between!)So I have plenty to do.
> My heath is pretty good but i have few struggles resulting from cancer, but I
> enjoy life with those minor handicaps.
>
> Help please?
>
> I am always asking you for something, this is to ask you if any of you can
> tell me anything about Malmsbury bobbins that will help me fill up a couple
> of paragraphs or it will be a very short "Collectors Guide". My apologies to
> the Malmsbury lace makers and their museum staff who were
