Like Carol, I respangle mine using old beads but to my preferred spangle size. When someone looked at me in horror for doing this I pointed out that it is highly unlikely that most of these bobbins have their original-from-new spangle anyway.
Probably most of my modern bobbins have been respangled at least once in their up-to 30 years of life, either because the wire broke or because I changed my preference about spangle size. For example, nearly all the ones with dangley bits have been respangled as I liked them when I was new to lace making, but as I speeded up they just got in the way so I changed to a smaller neater spangle. As I don't use my bobbins all day, every day, in the way that a professional lace maker would have done, and I have still managed to wear out a good few of my spangles, there is really no logic for us to assume that the old bobbins, with old beads, still have the original wire or even the beads that were original to that particular bobbin. Even when the books such as Wright's "The Romance of the Lace Pillow" were written in 1919, which perhaps give us our idea of what old spangles 'should look like', many of the bobbins were already decades old and could easily be on their second or third spangle, even if most of the beads were re-used. Jacquie in Lincolnshire - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
