These are very cool beads you received Margot, they are hard to find now a days, here are some I found over the years. (2 pictures with 6 images, you may have to scroll down to see all), please enjoy

as always, your photos and beads are fantastic.

I like the bobbin with the metal bands and also the beautiful tone of the wood on the sausage-shaped one.

And the beads.... lovely.... I am curious to know if the translucent amber coloured one with the pink and white trailing on top is British-made. Also the larger translucent with the pinkish spots.

Thanks again for posting these.
Best to you and Vicky

Hi Margot (& Thomas)

The translucent amber bead with the pink/white trail would traditionally be called a 'rope' bead or a 'snake' bead by the lacemakers, and if the trail started at one hole and ended at the other it would also classify as an 'evil eye' bead type, i.e. one which would help the lacemaker stop making mistakes (very important when one is making a living from one's craft)! Some of the better made ones are Venetian, and the more sguiggled copies made in England, but we are talking later 18th/1st half of the 19th century with some of these beads, so they can be pre- sample cards, and don't necessarily match any of the later more recognisable trade beads.

Having said that, I think this one is probably Venetian, as also the translucent one with the pinkish spots.

Carole

All I have to do is find them!

Carole and Margot - what a great find and great gift, especially for one who loves the old "Russian Blues"!

Here are four more that "live" here in the states. Carole, is there a way that we can we tell if the wiring attaching the beads is original? We have a few others that look like they have been repaired, and sometimes with newer beads.

Wonderful bobbins, photography and beads. Those light blue Russian blues are glorious. The large central blue spheres would be Bohemian as well?

And the link to the exhibit with the slide show is terrific - thanks so much for this. The historical images showing bobbin use are so interesting. Do you think you will have time to visit the exhibit?

Thanks again so much.
All the best to you and the family,
Margot

Hi Joyce

Spangles are traditionally made using brass (copper alloy) wire, and the wire tends to be thicker than that which we use on our bobbins today. Even when a bobbin wire broke, it was quite usual to keep the beads together and just re-wire it again, so the original beads often stay with a bobbin for life. You can often get earlier beads mixed in later spangles though, as lacemakers had their bead stash which would have had mixed age beads from inheritances and relatives.

All your four bobbins have what is termed a separate shackle or link of wire joining the bobbin to the complete spangle ring. This is a later 19th century technique which carried down to the early 20th century and is linked to a particular type of hand-cranked bobbin winder which had a facility for holding the bobbins in a slot by using these shackles. These all look original to me, and the large bottom beads could be either Venetian or Bohemian.

Particularly interesting on one of your spangles are the blue tubular beads which are wound beads made longer than simple spheres or oblates. These turn up quite often among groups of Bohemian beads, and can be fairly rough, or sometimes very neat spirals as on the image below.

Carole

I haven't been there in a long while - and I see they have a bobbin lace show up right now. This is a lovely 167-image slide show.

Hi Margot

I'm glad they arrived safely and that you liked them! I was hoping they would fit in your 'Russian blue' collection, and am so pleased the greeny blue ones are a new addition!

I have been lecturing on and studying the beads used by English lacemakers for many years (as you know), and my own collection is very large, but although I do use the antique bobbins now and again to make a pattern, I nearly always use my more modern ones.

So as we discussed offline, here is an image of one of my own lace pillows with work in progress to put East Midlands English spangled bobbins into context for members who may not have seen them before. The bobbins on this pillow are all modern, made of either bone or wood, and decorated in various ways - still a very traditional thing to do!

I'll dig out lots more images of other antique bobbins with collectable beads on them and post them over the next few days.

Cheers
Carole

I had no idea that so many bobbins were required or that the process was so complex! Thanks for this eye opening insight. It must take a long time to complete a pillow. Not to mention patience and a supercomputer worth of neurons to figure it all out and keep it all straight. I would have those threads tangled irreparably in no time!

Thank you for offering to show some of your collection of antique bobbins with spangles - they will be a real treat to see.

A final request - can you provide any references to articles you have written on this topic?

Thank you again so much.
Warmest best wishes from across the pond,
Margot

This image has a strand of loose, mostly English 'squiggle' beads and several on the bobbins too. Note the wide range of colours, but most often a very random type of decoration.

Carole

This bone bobbin was repaired in its lifetime, and could have gleaned this spangle at a later date than its original manufacture (which was about 1850-1870). It's called a spliced bobbin - the bone original has an inscription 'LOVE GIVE ME THY (and then 3 heart symbols which you can see here)'. Someone must have treasured it enough to have it repaired with a wooden bottom.

I like the bottom bead as it is so typical of the trade beads available in the 1920's and before. I'm sure that people will be able to match this one (or close to it) among their trade beads.

Carole

The most famous named lacemaker's bead is that which english lacemakers have called 'Kitty Fisher's eyes' since the 18th century (oral traditions passed down from generation to generation) and a bead does have to have specific details to be called by that name - translucent white base with opaque white eyes, with two blue-pupil eyes alternating with one pink one. Shades of blue and pink can vary, as can the translucent white background colour, but general colour scheme is always the same.

See attached image of five different ones probably dating from the late 18th to the mid-late 19th century. The smallest is 6-7mm diameter (late 18th century) and the largest is 15-16mm diameter. They are all Venetian. This bead was NOT made by english beadmakers, but it was actively selected by english lacemakers who gave it the nickname.

There are Venetian beads with black, blue etc backgrounds and the same general eye pattern as on the translucent white ones. These, however, according to the oral tradition are NOT 'Kitty Fisher's eyes' beads, but they do occur frequently on 19th century lace bobbin spangles as a decorated Venetian bottom bead with no particular name.

Oral tradition is a powerful tool in the study of social history and bead naming in this way began in the mid 18th century as a lacemaker's "joke" - something to relieve the boredom of working 14-16 hours at a lace pillow in poor light for small pay. Kitty Fisher was a real person - a high class courtesan who was paid very highly for her favours by aristocratic patrons. She was also married to a member of parliament (sleaze isn't modern!) and died young at the age of 28 in 1767. She was a very well known public figure, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the naming of a bead after her was like naming a life jacket after Mae West in WWII - a humourous nickname which has stuck and been passed on by lacemakers for nearly 250 years.

Some of the oral traditions concerning bead names and colours (including this most famous bead) were written down at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century.

Carole

Thank you so much for these additional posts Carole - your insights and images, as Thomas says, are a wonderful and fascinating education.

I remember we discussed Kitty Fisher beads long ago on the BCN but I think your original posts are no longer available so your posts are especially appreciated. You prompted me to Google more on Kitty Fisher and I found the following portrait of her, as you mentioned, by Joshua Reynolds and the following which reiterates your wonderful description and also mentions her nursery rhyme fame and sad demise from lead-based cosmetic poisoning no less!

Kitty Fisher, Catherine Maria (‘Kitty’) Fisher (died 1767) was one of the most renowned courtesans in London. She was known for her beauty, brave horsemanship and wit. In 1766 she married a John Norris, and became known for her charity. She died the next year as a result of poisoning by lead-based cosmetics. She was a model for several painters, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, Nathaniel Hone, Philip Mercier and James Northcote. Her name is known to us from childhood due to the nursery rhyme “Lucy Locket lost a pocket, Kitty Fisher found it…”

- from http://www.abcgallery.com/R/reynolds/reynoldsbio.html#KittyFisher

The two bobbins here have bottom beads of the type which I have seen called all kinds of things from 'Vaseline' beads to 'Mandrel-pressed', but which are basically Bohemian beads made in a tong mould whose hole is conical in cross-section and is wider at one end and much narrower at the other end. They may have been made as early as the latter part of the 18th century, but the ones used on bobbins are firmly 19th century in date and usually come in the colours translucent white, amber, opaque blue, cobalt, green and 'vaseline'-colour etc. The glass is very abradable and often looks very worn and scratched.

The string has some good 19th century examples but the red ones on it are later in date and manufacture.

Carole

As Margot said in her initial post, ‘square cuts’ (traditional name – they are not cut, this is a colloquial name) were made for English lacemakers by English ‘lapidaries’ (some of who were also from bobbin-making families) from the late 18th and through the 19th century. They are wound beads squashed into a square shape between files which impart the textured effect on their sides.

They used mainly transparent clear glass, and various shades or dilutions of ruby glass (which turn up as very light swirled pinks through to deep ruby reds). They almost certainly used scrap glass from the West Midlands glassmaking industry trade – hence clear and ruby red are dominant in the earlier period and become somewhat ‘traditional’. This image shows various of the red/pink and clear ones, but the middle spangle shows some rarer colours - cobalt, amber, purple and green, and the opaque blue on the strand is also a variant.

The bottom bead on the small early spangle to the right is also rare - a decorated square cut (like a 'squiggle' bead made into a square cut).

Carole

These swirled beads were specifically chosen by English 19th (and 20th century) lacemakers and given the title of "Evil Eye" beads. They believed the beads would prevent them from making mistakes in their work. When lacemakers were paid by the length worked, and financial deductions were made by the dealers for mistakes in the lace, it was essential that as few mistakes as possible were made! Hence the superstition about the bead. If one of these beads was included among the bobbins being used on a lace pillow, then it was believed that it
would help. I still sell modern variants of these types to lacemakers who like to keep up the tradition! LOL

To my knowledge the English lacemakers' "Evil Eye" bead is the only one which does not actually have an eye symbol or representation of an eye or dot of some sort on it, but merely a continuous trail around the bead, ideally starting at one hole and ending at the other. If anyone knows of any other cultures with non-eye versions, I'd be very interested.

Carole

Hi Carole,

Thank you so much for all your fascinating posts.

May I please ask a few questions?

Were the bobbins made by a company or companies or were they created by a 'cottage industry' of individual craftspersons who sold directly to lacemakers?

I think I understand that the bobbin makers also made beads (at least the square cut beads using scrap glass by heating the glass and reshaping it using files)? Did they also make the British-made squiggle beads or were these from another British source?

Would these same bobbin makers/companies have assembled the beads they made and/or other British + Bohemian/Venetian beads and placed them on the spangles or did the individual lacemakers select beads themselves to place on the spangles after purchase of the bobbin?

Were you able to gather fascinating information such as the fact the 'swirl' beads were considered protection against evil, the blue and pink dotted beads were nicknamed Kitty Fisher beads, etc. because elderly lacemakers are still living and recounted these insights? (Not meaning to pry about your research sources, just so curious to know how such information can have survived the march of time after the 'industry' faded away.)

Thanks so much again for these wonderful posts.
Margot

Hi Margot

Q: Were the bobbins made by a company or companies or were they created by a 'cottage industry' of individual craftspersons who sold directly to lacemakers?

A: Definitely a cottage industry - many of the bobbin turners lived in the rural villages just like the lacemakers. They sold directly to the workers, at markets in the nearby market towns, and at regional fairs. e.g. one turner lived in a village called Cranfield in Bedfordshire, and walked about 10 miles into nearby Bedford to sell his wares (see link).

Q: I think I understand that the bobbin makers also made beads (at least the square cut beads using scrap glass by heating the glass and reshaping it using files)? Did they also make the British-made squiggle beads or were these from another British source?

A: There is almost nothing written down, but we know of at least one bobbin-making family who also are listed as "lapidaries" in the trade directories. They made square cuts, and I have always maintained in my lectures and writings (having studied the 'decorated' square cuts), that similar families could well have made the English squiggle beads as well.

Q: Would these same bobbin makers/companies have assembled the beads they made and/or other British + Bohemian/Venetian beads and placed them on the spangles or did the individual lacemakers select beads themselves to place on the spangles after purchase of the bobbin?

A: The lacemakers bought/acquired loose beads and made their own. A box with a mixed bead stash must have been as regular a feature in a lacemaker's home as a necklace-maker's box is today! Probably recycled through the generations too, and played with by children (and cats!)

Q: Were you able to gather fascinating information such as the fact the 'swirl' beads were considered protection against evil, the blue and pink dotted beads were nicknamed Kitty Fisher beads, etc. because elderly lacemakers are still living and recounted these insights?

A: As with all research, the answer is a long time and a lot of research painstakingly gleaning a bit here and a bit there and putting 2 and 2 together etc - some documentary, some oral. But I have also been a lacemaker for nearly 30 years, and in the 1970's when it was realised that the last of the old lacemakers were passing quickly, both techniques and traditions were collected and preserved, and various people have researched their own specialist topics - with some it was the bobbins, with me it was the beads. The founding of the Lace Society (c. 1968) and the Lace Guild (c. 1976) has helped tremendously to make the craft live and thrive again, and many people learnt the craft in the later 20th century through adult education classes when it could have died out.

Hope this helps

Carole

(PS As promised I have written the first of the small articles for the Bead Society of Gt Britain newsletter and it will appear in no 98.)

You have provided such wonderful insights. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your remarkable knowledge. And it is such good news that your first article will soon be available in the BSGB newsletter.
Thank you again,
Margot

The newsletter is great! I recommend it for those of us "across the pond" - it is worth the cost of membership for their great quarterly publication alone! There is always something relevant to collectible beads and bead artifacts. The format is more like that of a magazine with color photos. There was more than one interesting article by Richard Green last year. Richard, many_roads1, is the Native American beadwork specialist who showed us so many great pieces in his collection just last week.

for your generosity. I love the pretty beads and the information on my Russians! Next to my new Dremel this was my favorite Christmas present this year. Thanks also to all who keep this forum up and running and who share their knowledge and enthusiasm. A happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all!

Oh, and thanks for posting about your lace bobbins. Now I have a new obsession!! The antique shops in my area just love you all for getting me all fired up to go shopping! :)