Cattern Lace

In the 2025 Red List of Endangered Crafts, bobbin lace was classified as ‘endangered’ for the first time, something which motivated lacemakers, including myself, to take action to slow the decline.

Whilst noting that practitioner numbers were still high, the Red List identified three main issues facing bobbin lace in the UK

•   High number of practitioners, but many are past retirement age

•   Number of skilled practitioners has declined by c30% since first Red List in 2017

•   There are few opportunities to learn lace making and accredited routes such as City and Guilds are no longer available. 

The lack of teachers and opportunities to learn is therefore critical, and as my professional role is concerned with supporting new and experienced HE teachers, and at a time when I’m growing my own capacity as a lace teacher I was immediately interested in trying to find solutions. Over a number of conversations with Caroline West (@englishlacemaker on Instagram) it became obvious that we shared much of the same thinking, and we felt sure that others must be thinking on similar lines too. 

In March, we held an online event, Lacemakers of Tomorrow to bring together lacemakers and lace teachers (aspiring or experienced). Expecting around 25 or 30 to sign up, we were blown away with the response- over 380 people registered with over 200 attending the event itself. We were delighted to have Elena Kanagy-Loux share how she has grown an online presence for lacemaking, and hugely experienced and respected experts Jean Leader and Gil Dye to share their experiences of teaching. Like so many, they want to ensure the future of the craft and we were honoured that they were willing to give up their time to support us. 

Since then we’ve run two further online discussions- one on preparing to teach lace and one on creating a digital community of lace teachers. As well as creating conversation and sharing ideas for potential funding bids to support additional work in these areas, we also wanted to capture survey data which will be useful to advocate for change in the future. Lots of ideas have been put forward – the chat box at all events was on fire! – and there is so much enthusiasm and willingness to share and support each other as we move forward. 

At the talk I gave at the initial event, I ended with a quote ‘lace craft slumbers, it does not die’. This was from a Swedish lace-worker, quoted in the book ‘The Romance of Lace’ by Mary Eirwen Jones. She then goes on to say that: ‘Lace has a universal appeal. Like every other form of craft, it experiences periods of marked prosperity and then sinks into near-oblivion for a time’. This book was written in 1951, 75 years ago when clearly things also seemed to be in a bad place, but we know that in the UK at least, within 20 years we had the big revival in lacemaking.

Despite some of the challenges facing lacemaking now, we are in a good place. We have greater numbers of lacemakers in the UK than there were in 1951, we’ve been fired up by the Red List and have access to technology and all the resources and knowledge that already exists, with a growing body of research evidence on the value of craft for wellbeing and physiology, so we’ve got a great springboard from which to launch something new. Watch this space- I’m excited to see how this will evolve!