Stott Park Bobbin Mill

 The bobbin mill opened in 1835 making a range of bobbins for the Lancashire cotton mills,  mills across the country and across the Empire. It was one of about 70 bobbin mills in Cumbria supporting the Industrial Revolution in cotton, wool, silk and jute.

It was originally powered by water, then steam and finally electricity. The landscape around Stott Mill is dominated by coppiced woodland and the easy availability of coppice poles was crucial to the development of the bobbin industry.

The bobbins were cut from the poles and then bored. The larger bobbins had a much more complicated process. Before the Factory Act of 1878 the mill was worked by men and boys as young as 8 all coming from the local area.

There were over 200 types of bobbin made at Stott Park and other bobbin mills all helping to support the Industrial Revolution.

It is a very interesting place to visit and only takes about an hour to an hour and a half to go around. Today it is a very pretty and tranquil place and belies the fact that life for men and boys working here would have been very hard.

It is well worth a visit and is a very pretty area to take in a walk and to pick up a bobbin to make a snippet roll!

Raffle Summer Walk July 2022

 

Snippet Roll

  Shelagh has just finished making her snippet roll using  mostly her hand dyed snippets. The bobbin is only 1/2 ins wide so she found making it a bit fiddly but the colours and stitching are eye-catchingly pretty.  There is an affinity between the bobbin and the stitching which makes it look just right.

It looks lovely and she said it was fun to make.

Thank you Shelagh.

Finished pieces from past workshops

  Shelagh has finished her attractive dyed snippet piece with hand crocheted flowers and a butterfly. It is very bright and cheery.

It is super! Thanks Shelagh.

Sandra has now finished making three dyed snipped pieces. She says her favourite is the lime green and red one.

Well done and thank you Sandra.

Wendy B. has completed the wonderful pink flowers on her felt piece and the stitching makes the petals and stamens stand out beautifully.

Fantastic! and thanks Wendy B.

Flower Pounding - Wendy Thwaites June 2022

  Wendy arrived with armfuls of flowers and leaves that she had picked from her garden and were suitable to flower pound. She explained that if the flowers and leaves were too fleshy the juices would spoil the print when pounded.

Wendy explained that when the flower was pounded the beautiful veining and patterning would often show up as  in the photos of the flowers below.

Samples of flowers and leaves were passed around so that we could see the kind of prints we could aim for.

Wendy had kindly brought us some fabric already prepared for dyeing so that the colours would last longer. We were shown how to lay the flower face down on the treated material removing the stalk and fleshy bits. The flower was held in place with masking tape and then the piece was turned over and hammered from the other side. It was very noisy but seeing flowers and leaf shapes emerge was quite addictive.

As members got into the swing of the method there was no stopping them and they started building up pictures and patterns.

The results were very pretty and delicate which is the exact opposite of the method which was very noisy and far from delicate!

Once you have some flower pounding prints you can do a variety of things with them.

You can embroider them particularly around the edges and the centres, add beads and make into a picture.  They can also be completed with a fine drawing pen.

Sandra had brought her bobbin rolls and suggested that the flowers were ideal for adding to bobbin rolls.

Sandra explained you could make a bobbin roll out of anything and was a neat way of saving some embroidery pieces. Any snippets could be added to a strip the width of the bobbin shaft and then embroidered and embellished with beads Suffolk puffs and English paper piecing etc.. When completed it could be glued to the shaft.

To make a flower pounded bobbin roll the flower/leaves could be pounded directly on to a strip and then embroidered or the flowers could be cut out in squares, embroidered, fringed and then applied as patches to the roll. On the roll at the top the patches have been linked by a twisted cord.

One member got as far as starting a bobbin roll as you can see below.

It was a fun and enjoyable day and some beautiful prints were produced. Members took home lots to embellish at home and some to turn into bobbin rolls.

A big thank you to Wendy for introducing us to this technique and being so generous with her material and time.

Thank you to Sandra for suggesting Bobbin rolls as a way of using snippets and flower pounded pieces.