Tips for identifying bobbins

Jo writes:

• Heads: Most turners have distinctively shaped heads, which is my go to starting place. But beware some turners use more than one head shape (e.g. the thistle shape on Alison Tolson’s bobbins, which are turned by Stuart Johnson, which is very different to his normal head shape).
• Tails: Most turners have distinctive tail shapes, or a small range of tail shapes.
• Overall bobbin: Look at the shape of the shank and the overall size (for example, AR Archer bobbins are shorter in length than Acorn bobbins).
• Painting: Many painters include their initials somewhere on the bobbin, so keep a look out for initials!
• Painted bobbins: Some painters use multiple bobbin turners.

If you are sharing photos, an overall shot of the bobbin, plus a close up of the head and the tail helps enormously.

For the head in particular make sure you don’t take the photograph at an angle - hold the lens of your camera/phone as parallel to the bobbin as possible.

Try to have good, diffuse light (I find outside on a bright, but not sunny day gives the best results and the least amount of shadow).

Do browse the albums - we have over 150 on facebook and over 25 on this website now!

Liz writes:
We've included this image below to help people understand what we mean by the different part names of a bobbin.

I follow Brian Lemin's convention where each of the elements of the top of the body have different names, whilst Jo follows Christine and David Springett's naming convention in Success to the Lace Pillow where parts 1,2&3 are referred to as the head.

Either way, we all know that when we talk about the head of a bobbin, we mean the top part.

For bobbins that do not have a spangle such as continental or honiton bobbins, the terms are applied as well with just spangle being omitted.