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This Le Puy roller
pillow that the french call"carreau" shows a storage hole in the
back. It probably held a drawer at one time. It is covered in oil-cloth:
the lacers liked that type of surface that kept clean , and was rather
cheap to change as
every woman always had a piece of oil-cloth at home. Moreover, the surface eased the movement of the bobbins that skidded on it. To make the skidding still better, they used to rub the surface with a piece of candle or soap. Some used a talcum stone, called Pierre de Gedre, (Gedre is the name of a place in the South of France where talcum powder is produced from a stone extracted there) |
| Right is another version of
the LePuy pillow covered with oilcloth. The bobbins in Le Puy are either
like
the ones here called "olivettes" (=small olives) or fatter, called "olives". The shapes in Le Puy vary from one bobbin -turner to the other, but in general they have this shape . These are box-wood bobbins, nice to work with. Poorer lacers had rough beech-wood bobbins. Fruit-trees were also used, depending on what wood was available. |
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