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The Lace Notes

A Fragile Thread: Why Bobbin Lacemaking Must Not Be Lost

14/5/2025

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Reflections following its addition to the Heritage Crafts Red List
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There’s something quiet but deeply stirring about the sound of bobbins clicking gently on a pillow, the soft rhythm of threads crossing and twisting as fingers work in harmony with patterns passed down through generations. It’s a sound I’ve come to associate not only with creativity and tradition, but with resilience and a sense of place. Yet this gentle art is now officially at risk.

Recently, bobbin lacemaking was added to the Heritage Crafts Red List of Endangered Crafts in the UK.

​Lacemaking is no extinct, thankfully, but endangered – teetering on the edge. This means there are still enough people practising and passing it on, but not enough to be confident it will survive the next few decades without deliberate support.  Action is needed.

There are many causes for a craft to enter the endangered lists.  Shrinking market, move to manufacture outside of the UK, an aging workforce or a decline in the number of practitioners.

People still play cricket worldwide but the manufacture of hand stitched cricket balls is now extinct in the UK.  This is because of the rise in machine made cricket balls and non UK manufacture.

Fan making has been wobbling on the critically endangered part of the list for many years and it is has remained out of extinction partly due to lacemakers.  In the UK as well as Spain there is a tradion of lacemakers wanting to create a bobbin lace fan leaf and if you have a fan leaf, you need fan sticks.

However, lacemaking has started to face that those who began making lace in the great revival of the 1970s and 80s are now declining in number with no resurgence in the craft, we see lacemaking entering the list and that will affect fan making.

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Fan pattern - C&D Springett, work and photo © the lace bee
Bobbin lace is more than an historic curiosity or a nostalgic nod to the past. It is a living craft. One that has shaped communities, sustained livelihoods and created exquisite heirlooms from thread and time. In towns like Honiton and Bedford, and in smaller, less sung corners like Irthlingborough, lace was stitched into everyday life. It was work and pride and artistry.
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Bobbin lace is more than an historic curiosity or a nostalgic nod to the past. It is a living craft. One that has shaped communities, sustained livelihoods and created exquisite heirlooms from thread and time. In towns like Honiton and Bedford, and in smaller, less sung corners like Irthlingborough, lace was stitched into everyday life. It was work and pride and artistry.​

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The potential loss of lacemaking is not new.  The 1800s saw a trying time for lacemakers, from the Devon lacemakers who petitioned Queen Victoria begging for her patronage to purchase their lace and prevent them from poverty, the the rise of the Luton Hat Industry pushing out other crafts in the East Midlands to the rise of Nottingham machine made lace, hand made lace has had it's ups and downs.

But today, we face a slow unravelling.

One of the greatest threats to its survival is something familiar to many heritage skills – a lack of visibility. In a world captivated by fast and flashy, the slow meditative nature of lace can be overlooked. Fewer people see it being made. Fewer still understand how complex and calming it can be. Even among craft circles, bobbin lace can seem impenetrable unless there’s someone patient and kind enough to guide new fingers through the first tentative stitches.
​

Adult education once played a powerful role in this. It is four years since I wrote about this in The Lace Notes, and the situation has not improved.  The revival of lacemaking in the 1970s and 80s with it being added to the Adult Education syllabus caused a new generation to embrace the craft.
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Evening classes and local workshops were places where lacemaking quietly flourished. It was never just about technique. It was about community. About women (and occasionally men) gathering after work, sharing stories over lace pillows, helping each other finish tricky corners or repair broken threads. Those classes were lifelines for so many reasons. And now, they’ve largely vanished.

​Funding cuts, lack of space, an undervaluing of ‘non-vocational’ skills – they’ve all played a part in the decline of adult learning.  the final nail in the coffin of Adult Education Classes to learn lacemaking was the requirement in the mid 1990s that all tutors had to have formal teaching qualifications, often to be gained at the financial cost of the tutor and that all lessons had to have strict lesson plans.  Anyone who has tried to learn a craft knows that no one student learns at the same rate as another.  Two people joining a class will be a vastly different points within a few months so one lesson plan does not fit all.

All of this, in turn, leaves fewer avenues for passing lace skills to newcomers. The wonderful exceptions – dedicated lace teachers, committed guilds, enthusiastic local groups – are holding the threads together, but they need support.

It has been many years since the schools of Olney taught lacemaking in the classroom.
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Although Northamptonshire offered Bobbin lacemaking in 2017/8, it is no longer available in the county. A check on Bedforshire returned the same result
I accept that the focus for government funding for adult education has to be towards skills that enhance people's work prospects, especially for the longterm unemployed or returners to the job market.  I also accept that taking up a new craft such as lacemaking is not a cheap experience.

If you want to try to learn to knit, then a pair of needles and a ball of wool will set you back about the cost of a coffee.  Want to take up lacemaking?  Then that is going to cost you far, far more because you need a pillow and bobbins.  

Because, over COVID I received a large number of donations of equipment from the estates of lacemakers who had passed, I have been able to give new students complete sets of equipment to start.  Even before then, if someone wanted to try lacemaking, I would lend them the equipment for their first lessons then if they wanted to continue, I'd set them up with free plastic bobbins and try to source a reasonably priced first second hand pillow.

When I've taught, I've tried to keep the cost of a session down as low as possible.  Effectively I would cover the cost of my extra teaching insurance and nothing else.  Since we moved house, I don't have the space to teach at home and I've struggled to find a venue that it a reasonable cost.

As I work, I would be looking for running classes in the evening or at a weekend and I have found that many potential students have the same issues with availability as me, they can't attend a weekday class.

This means that to make learning accessible, we are looking at needing cost effective locations and access to equipment.  And that is before trying to source teachers because many people are wary of trying to share their knowledge.

There is also the quiet problem of ageing. Many of the most skilled lacemakers in the UK are now in their seventies or eighties. Their experience is extraordinary, but time is not on our side. with apprenticeships completely off the table, if younger learners don't step in, knowledge slips away with every lost teacher.
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Lacemaking is not financially viable as a business venture, it sits in the 'hobbies' section of crafts, relegated there because no one is willing to pay the true cost of a living wage for a piece of lace.  What hand made lace you find on the market is often from China or India and the cost to the customer does not reflect the true investment of time into the making.

Add to this that the market for handmade lace has also dwindled. Industrialisation changed things long ago, but even now, when handmade should hold premium value, the true worth of bobbin lace is often misunderstood. Its price rarely reflects the hours or expertise required.
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​We have to accept that for lacemaking to survive it has to be within the 'amateur' or hobby sector.

Now I say this with inverted commas around it as there are many lacemakers out there who produce professional level bobbin lace.  However as they do not receive payment for their work, it can not be placed in the proffessional sector.

I prefer to use the term artisan for anyone who makes lace.  I've talked before about how my sister introduced me to someone as 'a lacemaker' rather than someone who makes lace.  We have to embrace that term.  We are lacemakers.


One of the clear warnings that the Heritage Crafts Association make is over the shrinking base of crafts people, those with limited training opportunities or crafts where there is no mechanism to pass on the skills and knowledge.
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So what can be done?
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We can start by speaking about lace more often.
​Show it. Share it. Wear it.  Join the local talks circuit and get out there and talk about your lacemaking.  Become a WI speaker, local lunch club ... anything just get out there and talk.

Don't forget about International Lace Day.  Go and make lace in public.

Pass on your skills no matter what level you are.  
​Teach it if you can.   

​Teach if even if you think you can't.  Being willing to share your skills matters far more than polished presentation. Passing on a technique over a cuppa at your friend's home to their grandkids can be just as powerful as a formal class. 

​There are so many YouTube channels and facebook groups out there that once your (prey) student has learnt to do the basics they can find more help on line.
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Filmed at Scotch Farm International Lace Day in 2019
​Click to enlarge the video

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Support local lace groups.
Help them thrive. And if there isn’t one nearby, consider starting your own, even a small group can offer encouragement, companionship and continuity. These gatherings are often where the magic happens: new lacemakers inspired, older hands supported and experience stitched into memory.

We also need to champion funding for adult learning. 
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Education is not a luxury, but as a vital part of community life. Bring back the spaces where people can try lace for the first time without having to travel miles or buy costly equipment up front. Let curiosity be enough to open the door.

The red list doesn’t mean it’s over. The patient isn't dead, just waving. 

It means we still have time. Bobbin lace may be endangered, but it is not gone.

​And like any good piece of lace, its strength lies in the connections between each part – between teacher and student, between generations, between memory and practice.
​
Let’s keep thowing the bobbins.
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Cloth Stitch / Whole Stitch / and I'm so confused

13/6/2021

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When I learnt to make lace, in the 80s, cloth stitch and whole stitch were the same and are described that way in many of the UK published books. 

Then, in the 90s, we went international and had access to books from around the world and we discovered that, gasp, not everyone described the bobbin movements the way we did.
This is when people started to use the terms C & T so that they could talk to each other and mean the same.
It then came as a shock to many people that Belgium had anticipated this many, many years ago and infact, had established the 'Bruges colour code' for lace back before WWI.  
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Simple explanation © Lorelei Halley Laceiloi
I teach using the numbers and then when my classes get used to that I introduce terminology.
So I teach the following where you number the two pairs of bobbins from left to right; 1 - 4 and always renumber after each move:
  • Half Stitch is - CT made by 2 over 3 (Cross / C), then 2 over 4 back (Twist / T) 
  • Cloth Stitch is - CTC made by 2 over 3 (C), 2 over 4 back (T) then 2 over 3 (C)
  • Cloth Stitch and Twist is CTCT (aka whole stitch) made by 2 over 3 (C), 2 over 4 back (T), 2 over 3 (C) then 2 and 4 back (T)
So far, so good?

Not really, because when I learnt, cloth and whole stitch were interchangable as terms and Cloth Stich & Twist was described as Cloth Stitch & Twist or Whole Stitch and Twist.
And it gets worse because some books teach it the other way, in particular, Doris Southand, in her book, teaches half stitch differently as Twist and Cross - TC rather than CT.

As Doris is very popular in the USA this can cause confusion between lacemakers who have learnt using her system, either from her books or from followers of her methods, when they move to books from the UK and Europe.

But it doesn't stop there.

Although the 'International System' was developed in Bruges in the early 20th Century, it was not internationally taken up worldwide.   
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Simple explanation © Lorelei Halley Laceiloi
Now, there were a number of reasons that the International System didn't take off and the main one was limitations on printing.  

During the resurgence of lacemaking in the 70s and 80s, colour printing was exceptionally expensive.  Most designers would only have a colour cover and maybe one or two colour plates in their books.  This wasn't an issue for looking at the lace patterns and finished articles because most, if not all the lace was made in the traditional white or black and the prickings were black dots.  

Around the mid 90s, dual colour because easier to do so we started to see the addition of blue into the printing of a number of books, most noticably Pamela Nottingham's later books.  This was followed by tri colour printing and we started to see red included in Geraldine Stott's and Bridget Cook's later books.

​With the opening of the EuroTunnel in 1990, it now became easy for lacemakers in the UK to take a train to Belgium and holiday in Bruges, giving access to the Kant Centrum and attend OIDFA events in Europe.

Towards the end of the 90s, access to international books was also becoming much easier in the UK due to international lace suppliers attending events like the National Lacemaker's Fair at the NEC and teaching at summer schools.

Interest in books from outside the UK grew and UK lace suppliers found it easier to obtain books from publishers such as Barbara Vey.  

It was around this time that multicoloured printing took off and we started to see the International Colour Code being used more and more in books and people started to realise that terminology isn't global.  So, the use of C and T became the international language on many of the newsgroups such as Arachne so that lacemakers could talk to each other and understand what was being discussed.
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Colour Code Key © Jenny Brandis
The wonderful Jenny Brandis adds colour working diagrams to her patterns which show the International Colours. 

​In there she uses the common names along with the CT notation.

​I particularly love how many times whole stitch and cloth stitch appear with different variations of CT.
What now?
​
My advice has always been to check the front of any book as in most cases, the author / designer will explain what they mean by half, cloth and whole stitch.  

Knowing when and where your book was published will give you a starting point as to what to expect.  Then look at the diagrams and check that you are using the same methods as the author.

​Jenny Brandis suggests making a note in pencil at the front of your book or pattern reminding you what the terminology for that book is.

​But most of all, make lace.
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Adult Education in the UK and why it was more than just learning to make lace

4/5/2021

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Picture1946. My Mum aged 14, Captain of the Netball Team and about to leave school and go work in a bank.
Adult Education services in the UK played an important role in educational development for women; not just craft courses but access to qualifications. The revival of these services aimed at women in the late 70s and through to the mid 90s really impacted many women who left school at 14 or 15 and had no formal qualifications. I recently found an excellent article on this which set me thinking.

For many women who went into work during WWII, they lost their career path when the men returned from the war and took back their jobs or they were expected to resign when they got married.  My mum left at 14 and spent 4 years at Lloyds Bank until she had to leave when she announced she was getting married.

​My Great Aunt was a Bank Manager with Coutts, during the war, but faced being demoted to Assistant Manager when the Bank Manager returned.  As Assistant Bank Manager, she could progress no further and was still restricted that she had to leave when she got married.   As her fiance earned less than her, they put off marrying as long as possible so as to save as much money as possible on two wages.

PictureThe inspirational Aunty Joan receiving her Queen's Nursing Institute long service award, from the Duchess of Gloucester, in 1975 for 21 years Community Nursing
When Hubby's Aunt Joan qualified as a Community Nurse in the 1950s, she knew that this meant she would effectively never marry as it was her career or marriage.

Joan is a very inspiring woman.  Born from her mother's first marriage, she grew up with her brother in Malmsbury, Wiltshire along with her later half siblings.  In the 1930s, she and her brother were the only two BIPOC children and were even captured on film watching the 1935 carnival.  A feisty child, she stood up for herself and her brother against children and adults who saw her skin colour as a barrier.

She left to train in 1944 as a nurse in Bristol but returned to the area once qualified and continued to work as a State Registered Nurse, Midwife, health visitor and Queen's district Nurse for 30 years. 

I had primary school teachers in the 1970s who had never married because up until the mid 60s, to do so would mean losing their job. Yet the male teachers were expected to marry and have a family as a way of grounding them and giving them further life experiences.

​Shirley Conran's book, Superwoman, published in 1975, was telling us that we could have a career and a home life.  There was now no need to chose. 

I had moved on from reading my weekly Jackie to stealing my sister's copies of MS Magazine.  By the mid 80s, we believed that we could have it all and we were going to grab life with both hands.

​Adult Education Classes became extremely fashionable in the late 70s and reached a peak during the 80s and early 90s. 

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No longer was it seen that a qualification taken through these classes was second choice, it was seen as a primary source of learning. 

​Living away from home for the first time, sharing a flat with a friend, Evening Classes were a great way to go out, meet people and learn a new skill. 
​

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​Women were now often living on their own and were taking diverse classes such pottery and car mechanics, often signing up for 1 or 2 classes a week. Costs were subsidised so that they became affordable. 

​Add to this that it was still considered unacceptable for women to go, unaccompanied, to pubs and bars, these classes gave women a socially acceptable activity that they could engage in, outside of the home.


A number of fellow lacemakers have said that they learnt to make lace as such classes.  

In the 1980s, I would scourer TimeOut for the best things to do in London.  From the hottest places to be seen, gigs and exhibitions to classes to take.

​Access to crafts and leisure past times were not just through Adult Education at this time.  Many national companies had social clubs schemes that allowed subsidised access to courses and crafts through their own clubs. 

I learn to make lace at Willesden Telephone Exchange through BT's West London Sports and Social Club.

The Lace Club was granted funds to buy all the equipment, up front, then we paid a small weekly amount back an after a couple of months we owned our equipment.  The Club also subsidised the cost of the teacher.
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Willesden Telephone Exchange is now Exchange House and has been converted to flats
PictureThe first piece of miniature lace that I made, early 1989
Any craft has a cost for equipment and tuition. 

What is interesting is that over time, the cost of lacemaking equipment has relatively lower compared to income. 

Let's put costs into perspective here.  I was working as a Technical Officer for BT and was earning a pretty good wage. 

I was renting a one bedroom flat in West London and was able to pay my bills, but lived frugally as my money after bills and travel was limited. 

PictureMy Sarah Jones' Orchid bobbins, bought one bobbin a month from the early 1990s
​I could afford to buy 1 bobbin a month from Sarah Jones and save up enough money to visit the annual Springett fair in September.

Let's add some context.  If I compare what I was earning in 1988 with a similar role today and its wage basically the take home in 2021 is three times that of 1988.  A bobbin from Sarah is 2/3 more.  My first pillow cost £9 for a polystyrene 18" pillow, a similar one £20.
  • 2021 wage = 300% 1988 wage
  • 2021 bobbin = 160% cost of 1988 bobbin
  • 2021 pillow = 220% cost of a 1988 pillow
Even allowing for food and bills, the cost of lace equipment has not risen at the same rate as other things.  It has become more affordable.​

So, why did Adult Education craft classes collapse in the 90s?  Two key things happened in the UK.  Firstly, in order to teach at an evening class, you had to have a tertiary teaching qualification.  Secondly, funding was limited at this point and many 'non essential' classes suffered. 

​Don't get me wrong.  Having a recognised standard of teaching is important. However, this was badly handled by the local authorities with many teachers being told during the summer holidays that they would need to be qualified by the start of the new term in September.  
​
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The qualification cost was something that the tutors were expected to pay for themselves and couldn't continue to teach without the qualification, but couldn't get the qualification if they weren't teaching. 

​​This lead to a number of teachers who had started in the 1970s withdraw from teaching as they just didn't want the hassle.  Some, but not all, encouraged their pupils to start up their own lace groups and may of these were social lacemaking groups without their own teacher.

The groups that started in the late 80s and early 90s offered lacemakers a place to meet and more importantly, lace days where people could come from different groups, meet, make lace together and have access to multiple suppliers.

Lace fairs were a regular fixture in our calendars.  June was the Bromley Lace Fair, September we all went to Rugby for the Springett Fair and Christmas was a trip to the NEC. 

​The first time I went to the Springett Fair in 1988, the whole of the back wall of the sports hall was filled with the teachers from the British College of Lace.
With a lack of teachers for lacemaking at the evening classes, the limited funding was often prioritised to courses where the markets dictated - those leading to qualifications such as languages or social classes such as cooking, which were always over subscribed following the new TV trend of cookery programmes feature Delia, Keith Flloyd or Gary Rhodes and the launch of Breakfast TV in 1983, with resident chefs told people that cooking food was accessible for all.

Single term classes allowed enough commitment (13 weeks) to learn a new skill without having to agree to 2 or 3 year commitment of a qualification such as City & Guilds.  

City & Guilds offered a lacemaking qualification starting in 1987 and was launched at Knuston Hall.  The qualification was taught at local colleges for over 20 years, however the biggest barrier to most lacemakers was the time needed to take the qualification.  I remember inquiring about it when it was first organised and realising that it would cost me more than I could afford in both time and funding. 

​Effectively, the course needed a full time commitment and as I was working, I couldn't complete the units in the timescales needed.  The cost per year, for two years, was the equivalent of 3 months wages for me, something which I just couldn't afford.
​
In the UK, following the loss of Adult Education classes we still had the Lace Guild and in the early 90s it was the largest guild after sugar crafts.  At the same time, the Lace Society was limited in its membership numbers, under its constitution, and after asking to join in 1988, I finally was accepted as a member in 1992 - think on that; a 4 year wait to join a society.

(You can get a glimpse of the Lace Society from this link using the Wayback machine that shows sites that have now gone)

The Lacemaker's Circle was the third national group for UK lacemakers.

Sadly, in the UK, we have lost both the Lacemaker's Circle and the Lace Society in the past decade.

Lace in the UK is still being taught at summer schools and residential courses, however, there are two issues with this.  Firstly, many of these courses are during the working week, making them difficult to attend for those still working and, offered in desirable country houses or conference centres, cost is still a factor.  Tutors deserve to be paid and venues need to be profitable. 

In 2020, the Women's Institute announced that their flagship Denham College was closing.  The have since launched Denman at Home to promote online learning.

Denman's ending after all these years must bring into question the long term viability of residential courses.


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The Lace Guild
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The WI have moved to online learning in 2020 with Denman at Home
The lacemaking population is aging out. Many of the suppliers that we loved are either second generation or have retired and in some cases, died. Lacemaking in the UK hovers on the borders of the Red List of endangered crafts.  

I was appalled a few years back when at a meeting of influential lacemaker, who should know better, it was suggested that our new demographic should be newly retired women as they had time and money! 
​
We must not limit ourselves to just one demographic - we have to make lacemaking accessible to everyone regardless of age or social background.


I accept students from the age of 8 upwards, but have been happy to teach young as 6 where they have an aptitude.

Lacemaking has gone through its ups and downs in the UK.  From the decline when lacemakers moved into industrial centres to make more money, the women of Bedford, who left lacemaking to plait straw for hats, the lacemakers of Devon, who petitioned Queen Victoria for help, decline through World War II and it's ups in the 1980s to downs in the late 90s, what next for lacemaking?
​
The lockdowns may just have helped to bring lacemaking out of the it's doldrums this time. 

People have turned to craft as a way to express themselves and online sharing and learning has become a way for people to support each other as they develop their skills. 

In July 2020, Beginner Bobbin Lace Makers was created by one person as a peer to peer group to support lacemakers.  They support each other through regular zoom meet ups, answer questions online and help each other through messenger.

As of May 2021 this group has over 1.7k members, worldwide.  

Think about that.  1.7k members who regularly talk to each other.

Probably the saving grace for lacemaking in the UK is the fact that whilst people join the Guilds and Societies, the individual groups are not affiliated with any governing body.  The recent demise of the Embroiderers Guild and the local groups were all tied up to it shutting has taught us all a big lesson. 

Just as evening classes in the 70s and 80s opened up educational opportunities for women in the UK, online communities are opening up lacemaking to people who would not have access through traditional classes, worldwide.

I think that the next evolution of lacemaking has begun and it's happening online.  
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