I first became aware of bobbin lace in 1975. It had been a bad time for me having had two miscarriages in the first half of the year and I had a strong urge to do something creative; if I couldnât make another baby then it would have to be something else. That August, to commemorate the Battle of Britain, a local department shop had a huge panel of lace displayed in a window with planes, parachutes etc. One of a limited edition made after WW2 and which Carol Quarini has recently used one in conjunction with her study of lace curtains - see the Lace Guild page on Facebook.
I remember standing looking at it for ages - well as long as the 3 year old would allow. I knew it wasnât knitted or crocheted, or a form of regular weaving but I couldnât work out how it was made. I had been going to an Adult Education class making soft toys, sunglasses case etc and on one occasion Iâd worn a cardigan trimmed with a bit of lace which I now know was Barmen machine made. The teacher had looked at it and said âdid you make that?â and my response was "of course not, I bought it in the market!â âWell it looks the same as what we make in the lace class." So, I joined the lacemaking class and by the end of the first year Iâd made a couple of hankie edgings, an edging for my daughterâs dress and a couple of small mats - and I was very pregnant with the twins which meant lacemaking went onto the back burner for a year or so. I went back to classes in the late 1970s and things had really changed. Instead of using white thread or white thread or if you were really good it could be black thread, everyone was using a different colour! So I started making a dark grey coloured mat with pink gimps (and I used crochet thread for the gimp!). The teacher thought that the change had come about because by then the UK had joined the common market it was easier to get coloured thread, but Iâm sure that that wasnât the reason. Itâs always been possible to get coloured Sylko sewing machine thread here, even if she didnât approve of using it, ie it wasnât an âaccredited lace threadâ. I think it was much more to do with the start of the Lace Guild and the sharing of ideas. The other change that happened in the late 70s was the availability of bobbins. During my first year of learning to make lace most of my bobbins had come via the teacher, mostly whatever old ones she could get hold of or nasty plastic ones with rough edges. When I went back I asked if she had *any* bobbins that I could buy and the reply was âyes, would you like some of these? or these? or these?â. My teacher was Vera Rigney, who had learned bobbin lace in the 1950s from a Mrs Helen Hoppe ,who had in turn learned from her mother Mrs Helen Ainger. Mrs Ainger was the teacher for The Cobham Laceworkers Associationâ founded in 1910 by the then Countess of Darnley, whoâs family seat was Cobham. Helen Aingerâs mother, Jane Dillow, had moved to Cobham in Kent from Buckinghamshire where she had been part of the, by then, struggling cottage lacemaking industry. Brenda in Allhallows paternos...@appleshack.com www.brendapaternoster.co.uk - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
