Weight, friction, that kind of thing. I spose if you put enough design effort into weighting it correctly, and maybe encasing the “neck” in a soft rubber, it might work just as well.
Mostly I think it’s economy of, um, non-scale: it’s close to a lost art. Even as a lifelong textile artist, I’ve only met two people who do it, including that lady when I was 8. There probably isn’t anywhere near enough of a market to justify any kind of mass production. Might be cool to tool some out of acrylic bars though!
wow really? I know tons of people in the US that make bobbin lace, in fact I find it mildly annoying because I am more interested in needle worked laces like drawn work or cut work and reticella and punta in aria. most people in the lace making societies are making bobbin lace. I am in the Society for Creative Anachronism which is where I have met most of the lace makers.
I don’t see why an 8 year old couldn’t do bobbin lace but it is a bit less forgiving than macrame with the tension etc. That lady sounded a bit snarky.
A quick search of the internet will find bobbins for less than a dollar each. 12 for 7.50 is one that I saw however it is the pillow that will cost you. Don’t get the lace “board” it is pretty useless. You can find sites that will tell you how to make your pillow though. You could probably fake some bobbins as well. a plastic straw cut into sections and partially filled with clay or something to add a little weight and you would be good to go. Most lace makers I know have a variety of bobbins.
There are plastic bobbins out there, they are just seemingly not currently produced.
My book (The Bobbin Lace Manual, Dover) suggests, for the beginner:
a basic pillow (home-made is great)
cotton fabric to cover it
24 bobbins (always in pairs, with 12 being the minimum- 28 pairs is the largest amount required by any pattern in the book)
pins
cotton thread- mandmade materials are too stretchy.
English Bobbins, Hardwood, (LC03) $7.50 for pack of 12
Lace Bobbin, Square, (HN04) $16.00 for pack of 24
Kliot Lace Bobbin, (HN02) $21.00 for pack of 24
96 of the first-listed would be $60 plus shipping; that’s probably about as cheap as you are going to get for a commercially-produced item (and I haven’t seen the plastic ones anywhere either).
Also, as someone upthread mentioned, 100 bobbins is a helluva lot unless you plan to do something insanely complicated and/or have multiple projects running concurrently.
If you knew me, you’d know that this is not an “unless” at all. My first envisioned projects are: A sweater made of yarn, but with the bobbin lace technique; a birdcage made of wire, with lace technique; and experiments in portraiture with lace technique. I have no doilies or antimacassars in my immediate plans.
Well, see, as you imply, most of the lacemakers I’ve ever met have made tatted lace, which is different. Tatting is kind of a cross between crochet and macrame; it’s mostly done with one thread at a time, as a series of loops and knots. Bobbin lace is more like a cross between macrame and weaving. Imagine a piece of woven cloth. Now imagine every single thread in that cloth attached to its own bobbin, and capable of being manipulated individually.
Erp. :eek: I’m not sure the lacemaking bobbins would work with any of that, since they are quite small; for, e.g., knitting-weight yarn, you’d only be able to wind a few yards. The bobbins are primarily to keep the thread neat and easy to handle; for thicker stuff they might not be necessary. For yarn, actually, why not try winding it into hanks or onto shuttles?
