Liz Writes:
One of the things that makes me very happy about this project is when I create the web page, I obviously pull the images from the fb album, but I also go back and search for the original posts. Amongst all these photos are some wonderful stories about the bobbins posted. It's an absolute pleasure to add these stories and memories to the website as they bring the makers and us alive.

The Gentlefolk page is a great example

As are Barry Adams' and Bill & Brenda Waight's pages.

There are some amazing antique bobbins whose makers are unknown, referred to by a characteristic of the bobbin (think of the bitted man), and we have bobbins for which we use that terminology (think of the Greek Urn Tail).

But to be able to put names and histories to many of the bobbins where the makers have left us is really wonderful.
​If you were a young lacemaker and turner at the revival of lacemaking in the 1970s, you might have been 20 or 30 years old at the time. That is over 55 years ago, and now you are in your 70s and 80s. The turners and painters from then are retired and, unfortunately, sadly leaving us. We've lost so many in the past few years. This project keeps our vintage and modern bobbin makers and painters alive for future generations.

As we identify more and more makers and add them to the website you can see that we have moved from our original remit of cataloguing any UK makers to including world wide.

If you have any bobbins that you would like to add to the website, especially any makers that we don't have then you can add them in one of two ways.  Either go to our contact form and send over your details or join our facebook group and submit your bobbins there.

Good question to ask really.  

Over in on our bobbin terms page we have these same photographs of the different types of head.

And on our spreadsheet page, we've added in tick boxes for which type of heads the bobbin turners and painters that we've recorded tend to have used / use.

So, this raised the question as to whether or not there was a trend in modern East Midlands bobbins as to head style.  Of course we created a pie chart.  And it's dynamic so as we add more makers to the website it will update itself.

Current Bobbin Head Types logged in Find the Maker ID Summary