Bobbin

A spindle or small cylinder, with or without flanges at its ends, wound with thread and used to feed or store it during textile work. In a sewing machine, the bobbin sits beneath the needle plate and holds the lower thread, which locks with the needle's thread in a stitch called a lockstitch; in lacemaking, a bobbin is a temporary holder of thread worked by hand, often decorated with beads and other ornament, with dozens or more in play on a single piece of bobbin lace at once. Bobbins were developed to manage the volume of thread and yarn that mechanized textile production needed to weave into cloth, and became essential as industrial weaving expanded through the Victorian era, when a single mill's looms might run hundreds of spindles at once, each carrying a bobbin that wound on or fed off thread as the machine ran. Traditional bobbins were turned from hardwoods such as ash and birch; modern bobbins are more often metal or plastic, better able to withstand high-speed machinery and synthetic thread.