Pillow Lace
The materials required for Honiton Pillow Lace work are neither numerous nor expensive. A pillow, two dozen bobbins, some lace thread, a needle-pin, a pair of blunt scissors, and a few pricked patterns or passements, and lace pins are all the requisites for this useful and beautiful work.
The pillows are made and sold at moderate prices by Mrs. Mitchell, a Devonshire lace worker, at Long Dean-street room in the Soho Bazaar, Oxford-street. Mrs. Mitchell supplies bobbins, thread, passements, and all requisites, as well as gives lessons in pillow-lace making. The pillows can be obtained with plain or handsome covers and cloths, and with wooden, ivory, or ornamental bobbins. Learners will find it useful to have their leading bobbins ornamented, in distinction to the plain, until they have acquired the art of working Honiton lace.
For braid-work Mecklenburg thread is used; No. 8 is a useful size to begin with for Honiton lace, No. 8 and 12 or 14 for very fine work; No. 8 is quite fine enough for beginners to manage.
The pillows are always sent out fitted up, but to change one design for another proceed as follows:—
Unpin the cloths, remove the passement; firmly pin down the new passement with plain, not lace, pins; replace the cloths, attach the bobbins to a pin about three-quarters of an inch from the place intended to begin at, divide the bobbins into three parts, and loosely plait down to the first pinhole, insert a pin and work on as before.