I think the bone vs. wood (or wood vs. bone to be diplomatic <g>) informal opinion poll is interesting <vbg> and yes isn't it wonderful we can have a choice.
Clay wrote: > I would love to be able to work with each of those very distinct styles > of "apparatus", just for the experience. > I have a sort of collection like this - I have enough Spanish bobbins and a large bolster to work a decent (usually Torchon) pattern with them. I even use the 'continental' method (e.g. TC for half-stitch) when I work with them. When I wanted to teach myself Rosaline from a book I invested in the cat's tail bobbins, only 12 bobbins are needed then I got a lot more when I realized how nice they are to work with for other laces. Honiton bobbins and pillow for honiton lace of course when I was dabbling in that. I have lots and lots of spangled midlands, almost all wood or plastic, brought out for Beds or Buckspoint projects. The midlands are shelved for now while I concentrate on Flanders lace and using Flemish-style bobbins for it. I'm not into using bone, to handle it gives me the creeps. Ditto when I decided to try an old Buckspoint pricking, still with its eaches (sp), the linen tabs to pin it to the pillow; I rigged a midlands bolster stuffed with straw and hung on antique spangled midlands I'd bought on ebay - the dust of the ages was bothersome! The poor little bobbins had dried out considerably since they were first used, so the authentic experience was not to be had - but it had been fun assembling the components :) -- Bev (near Sooke, BC on beautiful Vancouver Island, west coast of Canada) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
