New lacemakers keep artform alive

Originally published in The Nyngan Weekly

A group of crafty women learnt a new skill last week in a bobbin lace making workshop run by Elizabeth Allen.

The intricate textile is made by winding and weaving thin threads together with the assistance of bobbins. Participants learnt how to make a simple bookmark using 12 pairs of bobbins.

Bobbin lace is a very old form of textile making, that Mrs Allen said had caused some arguments among historians.

“Bobbin lace is a very old lace making exercise, and there’s debate over whether it started in Europe or in England,” she said.

“If you remember a photo of Queen Anne or Queen Beth with a huge collar on, that was bobbin lace. If you go back 3000 years, Aboriginal people were using whole stitch to make their fishing nets. So, it’s been around a long time in different ways.”

Students learnt the basics of torchon lace, which Mrs Allen said is widely taught as it is a great fundamental lace technique.

“Torchon bobbin lace teaches you the basics, because every other variety or style of lace uses whole stitch and half stitch.”

Mrs Allen has tried her hand at a variety of bobbin lace styles but said she always found herself returning to the torchon style.

“I just enjoyed torchon and that suits me. I guess because I grew up on the land and in the middle sheep and all the rest of it, I tend to want to go the other way a bit where traditional laces either done in linen or cotton, I’ve gone to wool.

“It’s a different medium. You’ve got to be more careful how you working it,” said Mrs Allen.

Working with wool is very different to working with cotton, as it requires the lacemaker to carefully hold and adjust their tension as they work.

“If you were doing the same tension with wool as you were with cotton, you’d have something that was half an inch wide at the top because there’s a limit to how much tension you can add to it.”

Mrs Allen has been teaching bobbin lace for many years and said she loves to use it as a way to bring people together and keep the art from dying.

“Sadly, unless we do things like this [workshop], it’s going to be lost.”

Mrs Allen taught workshops at the Nyngan show earlier this year and has travelled to Bourke, Tottenham, and Wellington to help spread the artform. She is chief steward of the bobbin lace section at the Dubbo Show and hopes to see people she has taught at workshops entering their work in future years.

But bobbin lace isn’t just for old ladies Mrs Allen said, with younger generations the most important in her eyes.

“Today, we had a big age range, and that is wonderful because trying to get the younger ones is hard. It’s harder for people who are a little bit older and not quite as with it as perhaps we might all hope we are, but they want to learn, and that is good. It is [the millennial] generation or younger that need badly to be learning.”

Mrs Allen said that she’s taught children that have shown great enthusiasm for bobbin lace but it can be hard to keep t hem going, especially farm children.

She spoke about one boy who lived on a farm who had a ball at her workshops and was full of new ideas for experimentation and applications of bobbin lace.

However, living on a farm, and learning about lace through the drought, Mrs Allen said he was required to work on the family property and had neither time nor money to get going.

“In the case of one young boy, he had at the ideas of how he could diversify but in the end, he couldn’t come to workshops, it was in the middle of the drought and he was a kid of suppose 10, and he was responsible for helping feed and water stock,” she said.

So, bobbin lace went by the board. I guess by the time he might have not had as much to do at home, he’s probably gone onto other interests and that’s the hard part.”

Mrs Allen first learnt how to make bobbin lace by the late Margaret Miller in Dubbo, who she said was a beautiful teacher.

Ms Miller’s teaching skills have been well passed on to Mrs Allen, who was patient and understanding with students learning a new craft.

Mrs Allen said she is careful when doing demonstrations to not take off too fast and scare off potential lace makers.

“I look at some demonstrations, and the speed puts people off. They can’t see what the demonstrator is going and they think well if that’s the speed I need to do it, forget it.”

Mrs Allen hopes that her students will continue to practice, learn, and explore bobbin lace making now they have had a taste, and work together to keep the artform alive.