Bobbin Lace

Bobbin Lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread that are wound onto bobbins to keep them manageable as the work progresses, with the lace held in place by pins set into a lace pillow at positions determined by a pattern, or pricking, pinned to the pillow itself. It is also known as pillow lace, for the pillow it is worked on, and bone lace, because early bobbins were carved from bone or ivory, and it is one of the two major categories of handmade lace, the other being needle lace, which developed from earlier cutwork and reticella embroidery. The earliest documented reference is a 1493 will of the Milanese Sforza family that mentions lace made with twelve bobbins, and the earliest known pattern books, Le Pompe from Venice and Nuw Modelbuch from Zurich, preserve diagrams and worked examples of period designs. The technique is generally understood to have evolved from passementerie, or braid making, in sixteenth century Italy, with Genoa credited as the place bobbin lace itself first developed on the strength of the city's established reputation for fine braids, before it spread through Europe along with Spanish troops, and the coarse gold, silver and colored silk passements of the period were gradually refined into the finer bleached linen bobbin laces that followed.