Wooden lace bobbins with inlaid pewter

 

These wooden lace bobbins are inlaid with pewter, which would have shone like silver when they were first made in the nineteenth century. The one on the right gives an idea of how they were made, by cutting channels into the wood, placing the bobbin in a fired clay mould and then pouring molten pewter into the grooves. Traditionally bobbins with pewter rings were called tigers, those with spots were leopards and those like the bobbin second from right with the V shapes were called butterfly bobbins. The bobbin on the left is interesting because it has pewter spots and fine wire wound round the channels rather than pewter. The spots were made by drilling straight through the wood and inserting a rod of pewter, which was then cut flush with the wood and smoothed to a shine. The bobbin with the criss-crossed pewter is also unusual mainly because of the amount of pewter used and the overall pattern. Pewter is an alloy of tin and lead and unfortunately the reaction between sweat from the lacemakers hands and the tin in the pewter can cause the tin to corrode and expand. This may make the surface of the bobbin feel rough and these rough edges can potentially catch on the lacemaker’s hands or the fabric of the lace pillow. In other cases, the pewter completely falls out of the bobbin, as it has started to do in this one, so it is common to find wooden bobbins with grooves cut into the wood but no pewter inlay. Although I do use the wire bound one, I tend not to use the others because of the likelihood of the pewter falling out.