24/8/2024 1 Comment The kookaburra and the easter bilby![]() Liz writes: I've been trying to identify these ever since I won them. I think that they may be Bill Botman, an Australian turner, but the only photo I have of his work has a slightly different head. This, of course, means nothing as for every turner who never changed their heads and tails, there is one who did. So, for now they sit in the unknown section of our files. I very rarely buy raffle tickets - I have a strange thing about gambling in any form so I normally prefer to 'donate' the money to the group rather than buy the tickets. Every now and again I can't get out of it and I buy a couple of tickets and on this occasion in 2005 I won a pair of bobbins which are apparantly Tasmanian Black Wattle. I know this because it says so on the bobbin. See, sometimes I'm quite intelligent! The spangles have a kookaburra and a bilby on them which my husband found on ebay from a supplier of sterling silver charms. Dangly spangles can be an issue with sewings but it's amazing how many things you can find to make that don't need sewings. If the idea of spangles and bobbins are to make up a picture of your life then these two bobbins and their spangles who what has been the best bit of my life for the past 7 years. Each time I get these out I touch a little bit of what makes my husband the man he is ... Australia.
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Rod Byatt
26/4/2025 12:56:09 am
I too have only one photo of bobbins turned by Botman. Both your photo and mine have very similar tails (the arrangement of coves and beads) - not exact, but extremely close; the heads are different. My photo shows very small, very tight, very clear writing in capitals (DUYFKEN on one, OAK on the other - the Duifken/Dyufken was a copy of an historic ship which sailed around Australia - I remember boarding it when it came to Sydney). Bill was a turner of wood lace bobbins. He died in the mid-2000s, in the same week as fellow W.A. bobbin turner, John Brooks.
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