It's been 16 years since that first class. I started with two dozen Midlands bobbins, and added more a bit at a time whenever I had the chance. Two-three years ago I did a project with Midlands that took 170 pair, and I didn't use all my Midlands, so I guess I have at least 400 of them by now.
Then there are the continentals. I started doing some laces that don't work well with Midlands, so acquired other kinds. My favorite medium small Belgian bobbin now numbers about 400. I tend to get 2 or 3 projects going with them that take 100 or more, and most of these seem to always be in use. Then there are the 'collection' bobbins. You know...all those interesting different shapes. I have one to a dozen of many styles of bobbins, so would guess about 200 of them. I seldom use these, but they come in handy if I run short of another styles. Then there are the Honiton. I think there's two or three hundred of them. Many of them are being used by a friend so I can't count them right now. I wanted to learn some Honiton so started collecting them a bit at a time. Plus include the other sizes of continentals that I have from 12 to 60 of a style. I think my last estimate/count was about 2000 bobbins in my stash. I keep saying that I ought to inventory my bobbins, and have a list of them.....but never get around to it. I would probably be amazed at the dollar investment I have in the collection so should probably have them listed and included in my insurance. When I went to England in 1998, I was asked to bring 100 pair of bobbins for my class. It was strange to think that I was carrying $1000 worth of bobbins in my backpack on the plane. At that time, it was also a surprise that I had that many Midlands bobbins. I had to spangle a bunch of them, and strip off several projects that weren't going any place, in order to get the 100 pair available for the class. In contrast to my collection, I have a friend who has one set of bobbins. Each project is finished before another is started. Very nice lace can be made without a huge inventory of supplies. Alice in Oregon -- where it's starting to rain ----- Original Message ---- From: Agnes Boddington <[email protected]> Subject: [lace-chat] bobbins I was reading an old Lace magazine (Jan 2001), and there was a story about lace and bobins by Carol Maydew. One small paragraph near the end caught my attention: "Mercy had counted her bobbins one rainy day. ........There had been 3021." I have a long way to go, but then I have only just begon. How many bobbins do you, roughly, have? Agnes Boddington - Elloughton UK To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected].
