What is a Secret Bobbin?

Quite a few years ago now, I visited a friend in Dallas, Texas, who has Russian ancestry and who is also a lacemaker. She has the most wonderful collection of Russian Nesting Dolls, and as I looked at them and opened them to see the baby dolls inside I kept thinking about the old English, traditional 'cow-and-calf' and 'jack-in-the-box' bobbins which operate in much the same way, and my brain was saying 'there has to be a bobbin in these!' When I came home I told my father (who then made many of the bobbins I painted) about them and he designed and made the first of my Nesting Doll bobbins, or as I call them affectionately the 'Russian Nesters'. They proved instantly popular as Gimp bobbins and are still favorite's in any display I put out today. I have gone through many colours and varieties of decoration with them, including the Egyptian version that has the external bobbin as the Mummy case, opening to reveal the bandaged Mummy inside!

Then one Christmas another lace friend gave me a little reproduction Victorian book, in which tabs at the edges of the pages pulled out and revealed a different picture, and my brain repeated 'there has to be a bobbin in this!'

By then, sadly, my father was nolonger around, but Stuart Johnson had taken over the Russian Nesters so I told him of the book and how it worked, and he came back with my world exclusive (I am quite sure no-one else has them!), the Secret Bobbin. Now, instead of pulling off the bottom ball of the bobbin to reveal what in inside the ball simply revolves and on the tiny cylinder inside are two different paintings, so that as it is turned the scene changes - the frog turns into a prince, the swan into a princess, Cinders into Cinderella. These bobbins are much more complex to make, and more fiddlesome to paint (!) but they too have proved very popular. I have gone through a number of designs, just doing a few of each to keep these bobbins really 'special', and I'm always open to suggestions for new ideas, so email me with yours, and though I make no promises you never know, yours might be the next online!

Basically, the idea works with any story or concept where something changes into something else. I particularly enjoy finding Irish themes of course, and Children of Lir was the obvious starting point, from our famous legend in which the children are turned into swans. Of course fantasy themes are perfect for Secret Bobbins, and the new one this season is The Unicorn's Magic Garden, where the flowers always bloom, the sun always shines, and the fairies are all around sprinkling their magic dust on our dreams to help them come true!

In order to better illustrate how the Secret Bobbins work, I have a small animated mock-up of my latest design, The Unicorn's Magic Garden, mentioned above! If your browser has Flash capabilities, you should be able to see the design below, and spin it back and forth to see the 2 different images that are painted along the inside.