Lace is made with several types of tools. There's needle lace, which of course is made with a needle. Bobbin lace, which uses small pieces of wood, which act like a spool, upon which the thread is wound. There is also tatting which uses a shuttle to form sliding knots, and crocheted lace like Irish crochet, which uses a hook.
Bobbins are the subject of this article. They vary in style and design but the function is the same. To hold the tread and give it tension, as the threads are crossed and twisted to form the lace pattern. Lace can be made with as little as 12 or as many as 1000 bobbins depending on the type and complexity of the lace being made.
The simplest bobbins look like sticks with a shallow section to hold the thread. Bobbins from Puerto Rico, Spain and Finland are some that remain simple to this day. Since the bobbin is purely functional these simple bobbins are all that's needed to make lace. Early bobbins were made from small animal bones or smooth sticks in counties where wood was more plentiful.
As time went on different countries developed their own bobbin styles. Some shapes needed to be heavy and thus developed a thick bottom to hold the thread taught. Other laces needed to use so many bobbins they slimmed down in order to fit more on the pillow. Some types of lace needed to thread the bobbins through loops made in the lace, in order to "sew" different section together and they developed a more pointed shape to facilitate this process.
In England the lacemakers found a way to keep the bobbins from rolling around on the pillow and sometimes untwisting the treads. They tied beads onto the end of their bobbins, since this added weight was enough to keep the tension. They found they could keep the bobbins thin and didn't need to have the heavy thick wood at the bottom of the bobbin as they did on the continent. The laces they favored didn't have the "sewings" and thus the beads didn't present a problem.
English "Midlands", named for the area in England where they were popularized are the most popular of the bobbins, which ended with beads called spangles. Not only did lacemakers love to see the lovely beads hung from the end of the bobbins but they enjoyed the beautiful designs turned in the wood and bone.
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