Bobbinet

The Bobbinet machine is a plain-net lacemaking machine invented and patented by John Heathcoat in 1808 (patent no. 3151), and with a slight modification it was patented again in 1809 (patent no. 3216). This machine was known as the Old Loughborough. Heathcoat continued to improve his machine. There were many breaches of his patent. The 'Circular' was an improvement, designed in 1824, by William Morley (patent no.4921). As it gained ascendency, its distinctive name was dropped; it became the bobbinet and Heathcoats machíne the Old Loughborough.

Bobbinet tulle or genuine tulle is a specific type of tulle which has been made in the United Kingdom since the invention of the bobbinet machine . Heathcoat coined the term "bobbin net", or bobbinet as it is spelled today, to distinguish this machine-made tulle from the handmade "pillow lace". Pillow lace, called so because of the pillow used to produce handmade bobbin lace. Machines based on his original designs are still in operation today producing fabrics in Perry Street, Chard, Somerset, UK.

The forerunner of bobbinet tulle was bobbin lace. Lace has been produced for a long time, made in tedious hand labour with thin thread and needles or bobbins. Bobbin lace is made by weaving the threads by moving the bobbins over or under each other. Much bobbin lace is based on a net ground. By the end of the 18th century, people tried to produce the net ground mechanically. In 1765 they managed to create a tulle-like fabric on a so-called stocking framework. It took, however, some more years until the first real tulle could be produced mechanically.

The forerunner of the Bobbinet machines was the 1589 , a weaving frame fitted with a bar of bearded needles that passed back and forth, to and from the operator. There was no warp. The beards were simultaneously depressed by a presser bar catching the weft and holding it back a course making a row of loops. After Strutt had modified the machine in 1759 to do ribbing, Hammond in 1764 used a tickler stick to transfer the loops 2 or 3 gaits sideways, and mechanic lace making was born. There was no carriage, no comb and the operations continued to be done in sequence by the operator.

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Wikipedia