Category: History

14/5/2024 0 Comments

Bobbin a Month Clubs - why you should join

Liz writes:
At my first lace fair, Springetts, September 1989, I met Shelia Perrin, of SMP Lace. I was carefully watching how much I had to spend and trying to get the most for my small amount of money.

I was trying to work out how to afford pillow, bobbins, books ... well everything and she told me to get my basic bobbins so I could start making but find a maker I really liked and sign up to their bobbin a month club.

Her advice was to buy the most expensive bobbin I could so that in years to come I had built up a collect that meant something to me.

"Even if you just buy one bobbin a month", Sheila siad, "at the end of the year you will have 6 beautiful pairs of bobbins, then at the end of the next year, 12 pairs and so on." I've been making lace for over 30 years. I now have a fantastic collection of bobbins. But those first SMP bobbins, my travel bobbins and my honitons made from different woods are at the heart of that collection and all because Shelia took time to talk with me.

My first Sarah Jones bobbins featuring her signature orchids © Liz Baker

When I first started to make lace, a bobbin from Sarah Jones or Heather Power cost £4.50. Doesn't seem like much now but in those days, my rent was £400 a month. So a bobbin was about a tenth of my monthly rent.

I came back from that first lace fair and told my mum about everything I'd seen and how I only had the absolute minimum of equipment (and that had been bought on a pay as you go basis through a club at my work). I told her what Sheila Perrin had said.

My mum, the angel that she was, said that she would pay for one bobbin a month as a birthday present so I could buy one a month myself and I'd build up my collection of bobbins quicker.

Two of my tulips with the LH bobbin being the replacement © Liz Baker

I chose to buy the Orchids myself and my mum paid for the tulips. Years later, I lost one of the tulips in a house move, a few years after I also lost mum. I reached out to Sarah and asked about replacing it. Sarah explained that she had stopped painting the tulips a while back but if I could work out which I was missing she would see if she still had her original sketches. So, I got out all the tulips, photographed them, sent over the photo and descriptions, Sarah found her sketch and a few weeks later I got my replacement bobbin.

Tulips were a particular favourite of both myself and my mum and each time I handle those bobbins I remember the kindness of my mum in buying them and that of Sarah in repainting a lost bobbin.

We recently ran a poll on the FTM facebook group asking 'why do you buy bobbins' and 6.2% said that they do because they are members of a bobbin a month club.

This is why bobbin a month clubs are so important.

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7/5/2024 0 Comments

What on earth is a drippy bottom?

Henry VIII, his six wives and Elizabeth I by Chris Parson. Bobbins and photo © Liz Baker

Or naming conventions with bobbins.

As you get into lacemaking and acquiring bobbin, you find that people refer to bobbins in one of three ways (or all of them at once, we don't care really)

Maker - Oh, that's my Archer bobbin!
Type of bobbin - That's a mother and baby bobbin
What the bobbin is made of - That's a bone bobbin

or all three - That's my bone, mother and baby Archer bobbin. And in English, grammatically, descriptions go 3,2,1.

So you would say; oh, they are my ebony, King Henry VIII, Chris Parsons bobbin.

Because whilst my Chris Parsons' Henry VIII ebony bobbin works (1,2,3), it does not work as well as the other way round, because it implies that the bobbin belongs to Chris where as 3,2,1 says that it's my bobbin.

Why do we do that? Well, it partly the grammar but also because it's how we've done it for as long as I can remember and that's since 1988.

As lacemakers we love bobbins, whether they are plain or fancy, we adore them. It's like a mechanic having a really got set of well balanced spanners or an oven that keeps perfect temperature for a baker.

These are the tools of our trade.

Lace Bobbins - Find the Maker (FTM) is born out of our innate need to know who made that bobbin we bought or were given.

But what happens when we don't know the maker?

Both Christine and David Springett, in their book Success to the Lace Pillow and Brian Lemin on his website suffered from this because they were identifying bobbins that were made way before they were born. So, bobbins makers became known by features of their bobbins.

The Bitted Man was one such person. He produced bobbins that were bitted and so he became known as the Bitted Man.

The four seasons painted by Diane Miller. Bobbins and photo © Liz Baker

So, drippy bottoms. In Diane Miler's painting we discovered that she used a bobbin maker who produced a distinctive style of bobbin.

These bobbins tails are rounded with what looks like a water drop coming from them.

Unable to find a maker for these bobbins, they became known in our house as the Drippy Bottom Bobbins. A nice piece of alliteration. And when these bobbins were shared on FTM, the name was used and stuck

When we eventually find the name of this turner, it's likely that the drippy bottom will remain and they will become Turner X's drippy bottoms or these are my bone, Diane Miller, Drippy bottoms.

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Bobbin a Month Clubs - why you should join

What on earth is a drippy bottom?

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