From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by weaving lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually determined by a pattern or pricking pinned on the pillow.

Bobbin lace has also been known as pillow lace and as bone lace, possibly because the bobbins were made of bone, or because sometimes fish bones were used as pins.

Bobbin lace may be made with coarse or fine threads. Traditionally it was made with linen, silk, wool, or, later, cotton threads, or with precious metals. Today it is made with a variety of natural and synthetic fibers and with wire and other filaments.

Elements of the lace design may include toile (clothwork), net (or grounds), braids, picots, tallies, and fillings, although not all styles of bobbin lace include all these elements.

Many styles of lace were made in the heyday of lacemaking (approximately the 1500s-1700s) before machine-made lace became available.

The advent of machine lace at first pushed lace-makers into more complicated designs (ones that the machines couldn't handle) and then eventually pushed them out of business almost entirely. The resurgence of lace-making is a recent phenomenon and is mostly confined to a hobby status. Guilds of modern lacemakers still meet in regions as varied as Devonshire, England and Orange County, California. In the European towns where lace was once a major industry, especially in Belgium, England, and France, lacemakers still demonstrate the craft and sell their wares, though their customer base has shifted from the wealthy nobility to the curious tourist.

Bobbinet is the name for the machine-made bobbin lace, made by machinery designed by John Heathcoat in 1806.

Some well-known types of bobbin lace are:

• Honiton - A very fine English lace with many flowers
• Torchon - Well-known for its variety of beautiful, often geometric grounds
• Cluny - Flowers, braids and picots (tiny loops of thread) make this light and delicate
• Bedfordshire lace (Beds) - this has flowing lines and picots (to foil the machines)
• Bucks point Buckinghamshire lace - very "lacy" with characteristic hexagon ground and often with a gimp thread (a heavier thread worked through for emphasis)

Lace types
Needle:	Punto in Aria | Point de Venise | Point de France | Alençon | Argentan | Argentella | Hollie Point | Point de Gaze | Youghal | Limerick Embroidered: Reticella | Buratto | Filet/Lacis | Tambour | Teneriffe | Needlerun Net Cut Work: Broderie Anglaise | Carrickmacross
Bobbin:	Ancient: Antwerp | Pottenkant | Ecclesiastical | Freehand | Torchon Continental: Binche | Flanders | Mechlin | Paris | Valenciennes Point ground: Bayeux | Blonde | Bucks point | Chantilly | Tønder | Beveren | Lille Guipure: Genoese | Venetian | Bedfordshire | Cluny | Maltese Part laces: Honiton | Brugges | Brussels Tape: Milanese | Flemish | Russian | Peasant
Tape:	Mezzopunto | Princess | Renaissance | Romanian point
Knotted:	Macramé | Tatting | Armenian
Crocheted:	Irish crochet | Hairpin | Filet crochet
Knitted:	Shetland | Estonian | Icelandic | Danish | German
Machine-made:	Warp Knit | Leavers | Pusher | Barmen | Curtain Machine | Chemical Hand Finished: Hand-run Gimps

• http://lace.lacefairy.com : Overviews by country, by lace type, beginner's sections, and more.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/355162/unbelievable_lace_juggling/ This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

• Hungarian Lace
• Csetneki Lace Galeria
• Rauman Pellava ja Pitsi / Finnish lace shop