This website is intended to the bobbin lace fans. To the creative people, who feel ready to follow more than four hundred years tradition of bobbin lace making in Slovakia. Working the traditional lace was passed down in families, from one generation to the next. There had been no written recordings whatsoever, until the second half of the 20th century, when the regional lace patterns were first documented nationwide. Yet, due to its complexity, the Liptov lace was left aside. Our Liptov bobbin lace website fill this gap and apprehensibly introduce the art of the trade to the modern lace maker.

The Liptov bobbin lace is unique

Multi-pair work is a typical feature of the Liptov lace. Wider laces are made by astonishing migration of changing pairs across the pattern rows. There are usually several leading pairs, occasionally taking turns as passives. Many more surprises ahead.

Professional bobbin lace literature often quantifies the patterns, stating the lace dimensions, techniques, number of pairs, etc. However, the years spent with the Liptov lace, its constant drafting, drawing and verifying make us believe, that a different approach is possible. The Liptov lace made by our great-grandmothers was worked with compassion and all their heart. Let´s try and tune to their wavelength to understand their centuries-old message. Rather than numeric expressions, our progress would be facilitated by our patience and graphic diagrams of the pattern, in spite of the fact, that in the old days, the Liptov bobbin lace was worked without any card drawing or a sketch.

My story

My story started on one nice spring day in 2011. I knew about bobbin lace only, that this pattern technique exists. My mum, since her childhood has been eager to learn make bobbin lace. She has been an active member of Povabnica Turca civic association for about five years. Members of this association have for some time been engaged in the idea of ​​book publishing patterns of Liptov bobbin lace. One of the association founding members, 79-years old Maria Cobrdova, prepared a sample book containing sketches and notes on the creation of 14 patterns. It was a summary of her 20-year work on re-discovering of the forgotten secrets of the Liptov bobbin lace. This sample book should be a substantial part of the planned book. But the association was unable to find a publisher, or anyone who would redraw the pattern sketches into a more readable form.

Coincidentally, I had the opportunity to browse through the sample book. As a mechanical engineer with a sense for precise work and a positive approach to drawing documentation, I saw no problem in redrawing of the patterns. So we slowly began to work on the book. It may sound strange, but my great advantage was that I am not a lacemaker. I often pleased others with the phrase: “… but this feature should be redrawn at higher detail level.” And so we drew the pattern over and over again until the pattern was clear enough even for me – no-lacemaker.

This was repeated with every other pattern and, of course, did not go without the appropriate portion of disillusionment in all participants. However, it drawing of the next pattern becomes to be a little bit easier. So, in 2013 the long-awaited book Secrets of the Bobbin Lace form Liptov came to light – even without the publisher.

The next step necessary to preserve the rediscovered patterns was to find usage for them in nowadays life. Thus, in 2014 brochures 16 Easter Eggs and Arches and Corners in the Bobbin Lace from Liptov were published. This was followed by the Christmas Decoration brochure, which we published in 2016. This one and Easter eggs brochure becomes to be popular. I consider as most successful and best elaborated publication of so far the last published book The Liptov Bobbin Lace in Current Use. This handbook contains 78 pattern drawings including 36 patterns never published before.

Creation of this page

The publication of each new book call for long preparation process. In the case of the last book, it took us three years of work to draw up the patterns, work the lace, photograph, and compile them into the final book form. As the time goes by and with increasing the practice in vector drawing, I am getting to the point where I find it necessary to return to some of the firstly drawn patterns and draw them in a slightly different and more understandable way. These are some of the reasons that inspired me to create this site and use modern technology to make the Liptov Bobbin Lace more available for the widest possible audience in the Slovak Republic and abroad. If you like the site, please tell your friends about it. If not, please let me know what should I improve.