Large scale bobbin lace with alternative bobbins

 

I started this bobbin lace a few weeks ago using an assortment of unusual bobbins. I posted about it at the time (19 March) and explained that I was using them mainly because I needed large bobbins that would hold long lengths of thread. The lace worked up quite quickly because of its large scale and I’ve now finished all 3 metres of it and am attaching it to a net curtain for a piece of work that will be exhibited in the summer.

The alternative bobbins all worked very well, including the old spools that I used for the ‘hairy’ paper thread and the ball of hemp thread that I secured with a rubber band to stop it unwinding. The main problem with the hemp thread was that it had a tendency to twist. I hoped that pinning it in place while I made the lace would be enough to straighten it and keep it where I wanted it, but I found that for the longer loops that wasn’t enough and now it’s off the pillow many of them have twisted again. They are supposed to represent sound waves and should therefore be straight so I will have to secure them individually to the curtain which is annoying as it’s giving me extra work. In contrast, the paper thread had a tendency to flatten, so the hairy bits didn’t protrude as much as I’d hoped, but I managed to solve that, as I worked, by teasing them out with a long pin after every few rows. I want them to be obvious because the work is based on a story in a book and I wanted to reference the link between the lace sound waves and the paper pages of the book. The good news is that the threads all lasted the entire length of the lace, including the hemp and the paper threads which I was worried might run out, so the only bobbins I had to rewind were the weavers. I’m pleased with the way the work is progressing so far and the next task is to embroider text on to the curtain. I’ll let you know how I get on with that in a few weeks’ time.