  Kenn & Deborah Van Dieren demonstrated lace making with bobbins. Kenn is the bobbin maker and Deb is the expert lace maker. Kenn also designs lace patterns. Looks like a complicated process but they both swear it's easy "once you get the hang of it." Bobbins are made of wood, ivory or bone. Ivory and bone last longer so the only really old bobbins still around are made of those material. Kenn cuts down a small piece of wood and then shapes it with a lathe and a heavy miniature lathe to get the fine details. Then the wood is shellacked. Colorful bobbins are relatively new. Before it was white or black (chantilly lace). Previously, this craft only used thread but now many more materials are used - anything than can be manipulated in a similar fashion. From Maker Faire website: "Bobbin lace is a method of making lace by weaving threads held on bobbins and pinning them on top of a pattern pinned to a pillow. To begin bobbin lace making you need a pillow, bobbins, straight pins, thread, and a pattern. These five tools come in a variety of shapes and styles. There are two basic movements: the cross (c) and the twist (t). Different combinations of these two stitches (ctc, ct, ttt, ctct, cttc, tct) and the placement of the pins create different designs in the lace. There are two basic stitches: the whole stitch (ws) doing a cross, twist, cross (ctc) and the half-stitch (hs) doing a cross, twist (ct) with four bobbins." |
