About The Lacemakers Project

What is The Lacemakers puppetry project?

The Lacemakers is an Arts Council funded puppetry Research and Development project, inspired by lacemaking lore and history. It is led by me, artist Daisy Jordan. This phase of the project entails research about the history of lacemaking (particularly when it was handmade, as a cottage industry), the folklore surrounding it and engagement with modern day lacemakers and lace historians.

The museum partners of the project are: Higgins Bedford, Amersham Museum and Cowper and Newton Museum. for more information.

The Aims of the Project

The long term aim is to produce a puppetry-led piece inspired by the research I will be collecting during this phase of the project. As well as being a place to collect all my research in blog posts, this website is intended to be sort of like a digital sketchbook, where I will also share my inspirations, ideas and experiments in translating my lace research into puppetry. There will also be some free online puppetry workshops for visitors to the site. The website will also have a forum section. The idea is that modern hobby lacemakers, people with a background in lacemaking (either handmade or machine lace) and anyone interested in lace can connect with one another, comment on and contribute to the material. 

Why am I doing the project?

I had the idea to do a puppetry project about lacemaking a few years ago when I came across a photo on the internet of a piece of autobiographical lace made by a woman called Adelaide Hall, a patient in a psychiatric hospital, in 1917. The small piece of lace depicts a number of tiny, 3-dimensional lace figures tangled in a web of lace. I found it so inspiring; the tiny figures made me think of puppets and I wondered if puppetry and lacemaking could be an interesting combination. It also got me thinking about lace making as a metaphor for storytelling. I wasn’t quite sure how I’d go about it, so I eventually moved on to a different project, though the idea stayed in the back of my mind. 

Autobiographical lace by Adelaide Hall

I’ve always really loved lace as an object, but when I started looking into its history, and the various folklore surrounding it, I was really intrigued by its dark past. I learned that, before the Industrial Revolution, lace was made entirely by hand, with the lacemakers working extremely long hours in poor working conditions. I was also fascinated by the Lace Tells - songs sung by lacemakers while working, often with very macabre subject matter. You can find out more about the history in my various blog posts!

I hope you enjoy the website! Please feel free to comment on posts or in the forum. 

Daisy xx

About Lacemaking

Lacemaking was originally a “cottage industry” before the Industrial Revolution. It was made mainly by women and girls from the age of 6, either at home or in “lace schools” as a way to make some money while still being confined to the home.

Traditional bobbin lace was made by weaving and twisting together threads wound on wooden bobbins, and then pinning the threads in place onto a “lace pillow”.

Lacemakers often gathered together in order to share warmth and socialise. “Lace Tells” were songs the lacemakers would sing together while at their lace pillows. These songs were often macabre in nature, telling stories that often involved bloody murder, sexual threat and premature death. They sometimes incorporated the lace-making process into the songs - for example, counting the pins as they are pushed into the pillow.

After the industrial revolution and the development of machinery, lace making by hand was no longer a feasible way to make money. Lacemaking as an industry has since been done using machines. Nottingham then became the centre of the world’s lace industry, though today only one true lace-making factory remains in Nottingham.

Lacemaking by hand lives on through hobby lacemakers.