Spiral decorated beads on lace bobbins

 

The spangles that are used to weight East Midlands lace bobbins are functional but also decorative and incorporate a variety of glass beads, several of which we’ve discussed before in this blog. The bottom bead in each of the spangles in the image above all have swirling patterns on them. Five are made using a marbling technique in which lines of contrasting glass are added once the body of the bead has been formed, then while the glass is still molten a thin wire is passed through the lines to distort them and form the swirling pattern. However, the bottom bead on the second bobbin from the top looks as if the dark decoration has been painted onto the surface with a brush. Many beads with swirling patterns, such as the bottom bead on the second bobbin on the right, were called ‘evil eye beads’ as the snake-like shape of the spiral was thought to avert the evil eye. The head of the snake began at the top of the bead near the hole and spiralled round to taper into a tail into the hole at the bottom of the bead. Many people mistakenly think that the beads on a lace bobbin are used to identify it and define its function but that is not the case; all of the bobbins are interchangeable. It seems that East Midlands lacemakers just liked decorative beads on their spangles in the same way as they enjoyed decorative lace bobbins on their pillows.