Having just finished scanning William Felkin's great book on the machine lace industry, I now am an expert! Well, at least I know what the word "bobbinet" refers to. It is the name used for nets made on a machine. The first one was made by Heathcoat in 1808 and improved over the 19th century. A very nice reference can be found in Pat Earnshaw's A Dictionary of Lace. It is in other identification books, too, but I'm too lazy to get them all out.
The Felkin book can be found on the Prof's website at <http:// www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/books.html#F> or <http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/lace.html#books> Felkin, William. A History of the Machine-Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacturers, Burt Franklin, New York, 1967, 608 pages. Posted April 18, 2007. SAMPLE PAGE. REVIEW. Part 1: File size 10.1 MB PDF. Part 2: File size 12.5 MB PDF. Part 3: File size 11.9 MB PDF. I'm not sure how far we have gotten on CD #7, but I have an idea that we are filling it up pretty fast. I'm working on assembling some of the old embroidery books I have around the house and they will be added to the CD if it seems appropriate. But there are still lots of lace books to work on! Tess ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]