David, I usually thread the shoelace through the spangles of about 6 to 10 pair max., then tie in a bow, bundling the bobbins into a bunch. The bundles get stacked at the side. If there are a lot of bobbins - say more than 50 pair in use - I have some small squares of fabric which I place between layers of about 3 or 4 bundles, it seems to make it easier to stack them higher. And being soft shoelaces, and not slippery ribbon, the bow does not come undone until you pull on an end.
My idea is not to hold a lot of bobbins in one go, but to have smaller manageable bundles of bobbins to help with a continuous flow of work. It quickly becomes second nature to finish with 6 pair of bobbins or so, thread them onto their shoelace, and reach for another bundle. 20 pair in a batch would be a bit unmanageable for me. As I need new bobbins from one side or the other, I just take the bundle down, undo the bow, pull the shoelace to one side or the other to give easy access to the bobbins in that bundle, and continue using them. It's often the case you only need one or two pairs of bobbins from a bundle to finish a certain section of lace, and then you're finished with those bobbins for the time being. They get slipped back onto their shoelace, the bow quickly retied, and they never get out of order. And to carry the pillow you just need a cover cloth pinned firmly over the top. Never a broken thread or tangled bobbins. There don't seem to be any problems I can think of. The only one used to be the wire in the spangling snagged in the shoelace, but I've been gradually properly rebeading my old, roughly twisted wire spangles and that isn't so much of a problem any more. When I was doing the Chantilly class (hello Ilske) where you have to carry ground bobbins with the gimp so often, there were all sorts of ideas flying around the classroom about the best way to bundle them together - I stuck to my shoelaces, which kept the threads in order as well, and when bundled up, were easy to handle as a single bobbin. I was grateful I was using spangled bobbins! Noelene in Cooma [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nlafferty/ > -----Original Message----- > >So far no-one seems to have mentioned my favourite bobbin holder for my > >spangled bobbins - shoe laces. > > Haven't ever heard of them being suggested before. I always use those > giant safety pin shapes - make 2 from any cheap plastic-coated > coat-hanger. They hold about 20 pairs each - might be more. But I > reckon your shoe lace idea would hold a lot more. > > Do you ever find that they all want to fall off before you're ready > for them? I assume you thread them on and tie a bow. Is the bow big > enough to stop bobbins getting past it and mucking up their order, > etc. Do you have any handy hints on how best to manage them - > assuming I might have 6 or 7 piles of them when making Chantilly. > > In other words, have you noticed any problems or annoying little > things when using shoe laces. If so, perhaps we could solve them here. > > Thanks > David in Ballarat - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
